Following the arrival of one million doses of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) vaccines from Argentina, South Africa's Minister of Agriculture, John Steenhuisen, has prioritized distribution to the most affected provinces, including KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, North West, and Mpumalanga. The vaccines are at Onderstepoort Biological Products for dispatch, with Steenhuisen stressing biosecurity measures alongside vaccination.
The one million doses of FMD vaccines from Argentina, announced last week and now at Onderstepoort Biological Products, represent a critical step in combating South Africa's outbreak. Minister John Steenhuisen confirmed prioritization for hardest-hit provinces: KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, North West, and to some extent Mpumalanga. Every province will receive some from this initial batch to curb spread.
Distribution is guided by a Ministerial Task Team's heat map, categorizing municipal areas as primary (most virulent and fastest-spreading), secondary, and tertiary. Primary areas get the bulk first.
Steenhuisen stated: “KwaZulu Natal, the Free State, and the North West province and to some degree Mpumalanga. So, they will get the bulk of this but every province will be receiving something out of this first batch here, to enable us to begin to break the back of the virus going forward. How it will be distributed, the Ministerial Task Team, has developed a heat map for the country where every municipal boundary has been broken up into a primary, secondary or tertiary classification. Obviously, the primary sectors are where the disease is at its most virulent and is spreading the fastest, so those primary areas will be focused.”
This builds on the national strategy to vaccinate the cattle herd and restore FMD-free status with vaccination, complementing biosecurity to protect livestock and the economy.