Minister of Agriculture John Steenhuisen believes the aim to vaccinate 80% of the national herd for foot-and-mouth disease by December will be reached.

• Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen believes the aim to vaccinate 80% of the national herd for foot-and-mouth disease by December will be reached.
• Large-scale vaccine procurement ensures sufficient supply for initial and booster doses, with provinces managing the rollout.
• Steenhuisen and his department updated the Portfolio Committee on Agriculture on their response to the FMD outbreak on Tuesday.

Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen says 80% of the national herd will be vaccinated for foot-and-mouth disease by December.

Steenhuisen and his department provided an update on their response to FMD to the Portfolio Committee on Agriculture on Tuesday morning.

Steenhuisen said the intention was to vaccinate the national herd by December.

“I believe we are on track,” he said.

He said they were now procuring vaccines in large batches.

“And we’ll have more than enough vaccines for the initial doses and the secondary doses.”

He said every agriculture MEC would be aware of this, as there were fortnightly meetings between him and the MECs. The provinces are responsible for the rollout of the vaccines.

“So, I don’t want anybody to be under the illusion or apprehension that there will not be enough vaccines to do the initial shot and the booster shot,” said Steenhuisen.

“We are procuring vaccines now at scale, and there will be plenty of vaccines for us to meet the target by the end of the year.”

READ | ‘No dereliction of duty,’ Steenhuisen tells Trollip on FMD in parliamentary response

The end goal is to vaccinate every head of cattle in the country. But, said Steenhuisen, when you have an emergency, you have to prioritise, hence there is a bias towards the Free State and KwaZulu-Natal.

He said:

He also said no farmer needed to be concerned that they would not be getting booster shots. The procurement for this is already under way. The booster shots can be taken six months after the initial shot.

ActionSA parliamentary leader Athol Trollip, a cattle farmer himself, said he was “very pleased to hear that there are enough vaccines”.

“When the minister says we’ll meet our 80% target, that is reassuring.”

He said it is less reassuring that the department and the three entities Steenhuisen referred to as “MAGA fringe organisations” – SAAI, Sakeliga and Free State Agriculture – could not find one another through arbitration, and the court case will continue.

The three entities took the department to court.

Steenhuisen said anyone was entitled to litigation, and they would oppose the application.