27 Apr 2026

World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) has lauded Botswana for resilient Animal Health System and championing veterinary animal health standards in the fight against Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) outbreak.

Botswana has been exemplary in following standards on FMD prevention and control, WOAH sub regional representative for Southern Africa, Dr Moetapele Letshwenyo, said during the FMD Pitso that took place in Lobatse.

The regulatory organisation provides guidance on animal disease control standards and improvement of animal health globally, targeted at building a safer world, acknowledged Botswana’s animal health system integrity.

Dr Letshwenyo highlighted that signing of the Economic Partnership Agreements involved standards as they were requirements in trade facilitation and over the years, Botswana had demonstrated supreme commitment in adhering to the set standards in livestock zoning and compartmentalisation to control disease outbreaks.

He also underscored the significance of continuing to follow standards in the fight against FMD, to facilitate international safe trade, provide common language for animal health, support disease prevention control and eradication in order to protect livelihoods and food security.

Most countries in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) are under siege, a regional approach must be devised to combat transboundary FMD therefore, a regional FMD eradication project would be supported by WOAH, Dr Letshwenyo said. He cautioned that FMD control was a public good and so no individual farmer must be tempted to buy a vaccine and inject livestock as that might pose other challenges and even more serious ones to the region.

Acting Minister of Lands and Agriculture, Dr Edwin Dikoloti, stated that the current FMD crisis was one of the most severe in the region’s history as cases occurred almost simultaneously in neighbouring countries, the first time Botswana was hit by three outbreaks almost simultaneously in the same year.

“These outbreaks happen in spite of the Botswana’s robust zoning system underpinned by extensive network of cordon fences, and stringent sanitary measures. It exposes critical vulnerabilities in our disease control system and once again underscores the need to treat it as a shared regional challenge rather than an isolated national issue,” he said.

Dr Dikoloti nonetheless highlighted that Botswana was among the most prominent countries in implementing and having their containment and zoning strategies recognised by WOAH adding that mapping out containment zones allowed countries to quickly isolate an outbreak of a disease to a specific area, preventing the loss of disease free status for the rest of the country.

However, he noted, like other developing economies, Botswana remained vulnerable to transboundary animal diseases due to significantly eroded capacity to respond due to loss of highly trained workforce and a precarious fiscal environment that hindered disease control efforts.

Furthermore, Dr Dikoloti said to combat FMD, the country should use of Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) new Global Partnership Programme on Transboundary Animal Diseases to achieve a more coordinated regional response to transboundary animal diseases thus improving disease surveillance efficiencies, establishment of more resilient vaccine supply antigen banks, and strengthen biosecurity which was a key issue for production systems.

FAO head of programmes, Ms Lesedi Mmopelwa, reiterated FAO’s commitment to working with Botswana to overcome the current FMD crisis adding that FAO worked closely with governments to strengthen FMD prevention and control across the SADC region.

She said the inaugural FMD Pitso which was sponsored financially and technically by FAO and WOAH served not only as a response to a crisis but to bring all stakeholders under one roof to learn and chart a new path in robust FMD disease control.

Ms Mmopelwa noted that recent suspension of Botswana beef exports to the European Union due to FMD outbreak had demonstrated how animal health emergencies could quickly evolve into trade, economic and livelihoods crisis especially for Botswana where the livestock sector was the bedrock of rural livelihoods, food security, employment and foreign exchange earnings.

She also called for SADC member states to work together to combat the transboundary disease, because no country could effectively manage in isolation. ends