Govt allocates R1.4bn for foot-and-mouth disease vaccination
Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen has confirmed the government has provided R1.4 billion to combat foot-and-mouth disease.
Additional funding has also been requested to contain the disease, which has been declared a national disaster.
The government will cover the full cost of vaccinating livestock as part of a national containment campaign.
Steenhuisen says South Africa has already received one million vaccine doses from Biogénesis Bagó in Argentina and 1.5 million doses from Dollvet in Türkiye, with further consignments scheduled to arrive in the coming weeks to sustain the vaccination campaign.
The government aims to vaccinate about 80 per cent of the national herd by December.
Steenhuisen also hit back at claims that the government is profiting from the vaccines.
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“The vaccines are being procured and paid for by the state and administered free of charge to farmers,” he said.
“No farmer is paying for these vaccines, and the government is certainly not selling them.”
Meanwhile, the Free State has overtaken KwaZulu-Natal as the epicentre of foot-and-mouth disease, with 277 active outbreaks compared with 202 in KZN.
The Department of Agriculture commenced its vaccination drive this week with more than 119,000 cattle vaccinated in the Free State.
Nationwide, 935 outbreaks have been recorded.
