16 Feb 2014

Farmers with more than 100 cattle will be given free vaccine for vaccines Anthrax, QE and CA, says the director of veterinary services, Dr Letshwenyo Modisa.

Speaking during the fourth stakeholders meeting on Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD), he said his department would provide contacts of people who could help with vaccination and pay them.

He said the department had realised that it could not treat farmers equally hence it came with the decision. He said the decision would also encourage farmers to vaccinate their cattle on time.

He stated that some challenges faced by the department such as shortage of technicians made it impossible to adequately consult farmers on scheduling of vaccinations. Dr Modisa also observed that farmer response to temporary crushes had been disappointing around lake Ngami.

He also informed the meeting that the department would also vaccinate animals in kraals with less than 100 cattle. Dr Modisa noted they would did the FMD and Rabies vaccinations.

He informed them that the first leg of vaccination would commence on  February 27. The campaign will use teams of inoculators and field assistants supervised by veterinary officials.  

Dr Modisa informed the farmers that vaccination with purified vaccine in Zone 7 was ongoing and no cases of FMD were recorded in the areas since August 2011. However , he said, the threat from neighbouring countries was still real.

When briefing farmers on the FMD update and strategy for the future, he said the situation in Ngamiland had significantly improved although the department still recorded sporadic cases. He said the last case was picked in Matsebe in  September 2013.

Regarding the long term strategy for FMD, Dr Modisa said the department would do risk based vaccination regime,  engage a consultant to advise on FMD and also the creation of protection zone being zones 7, 6 CZ, 3c, 3b,4a and Ngamiland PZ. On the Ngamiland protection zone, he said the fence was complete up to Kuke and that there was a proposal to join it to Setata fence.

Dr Modisa also informed framers that in an effort to mitigate drought in their area, marketing of live cattle to other countries was still allowed.However, he raised concern that his department was seeing an influx of cattle into the Okavango Delta saying his department would not compromise protocol.

He said the government continued in its efforts to secure a market for their cattle but currently the response from other countries was not good enough.He said only 120 cattle were exported to Democratic Republic Congo, and 5 987 to Zimbabwe.All the animals came from Ngamiland.

Dr Modisa said at the moment, the trade to Zimbabwe had been suspended as Zimbabwe had reported lack of funds to buy more cattle for slaughter and vaccines.For their part, farmers welcomed the protection zone and called for work on it to be expedited.   They called for consultation with farmers to come up with vaccination schedules so they could prepare their cattle. Ends