Options For Foot-and-mouth Disease Control In Sa

Earlier this year, fewer than 50 cattle in Sundani village, Vhembe district, probably worth less than R300 000, were diagnosed with footand-mouth disease. This was enough to place a R6 billion export industry of livestock and livestock products in jeopardy.

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The World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), which sets international standards for trade in animals and animal commodities, also provides countries and zones within countries with official foot and-mouth-disease (FMD)-free recognition.

In South Africa, FMD is endemic to a narrow region along the northeastern border, consisting of the Kruger National Park and surrounding areas. The rest of the country is an FMDfree zone without vaccination.

Following the recent outbreak in the Vhembe district, South Africa initiated steps to establish a containment zone around the infected area, so that the rest of the country could continue trading with partners that accepted the level of protection provided by the zone.

A containment zone is considered effective once no new cases are reported within the zone or the protection zone for at least 28 days.

The containment zone may regain free status once the outbreak has been resolved.

The OIE also provides for international standards of FMD control independent of geographic distribution of the virus. These are compartmentalisation; processing of beef to render the FMD virus inactive; and management of the FMD risk along the value chain.

COMPARTMENTS

A compartment is defined as “an animal subpopulation contained in one or more establishments under a common biosecurity management system with a distinct health status in terms of a specific disease or specific diseases for which required surveillance, control and biosecurity measures have been applied for the purpose of international trade”.