WC govt procures 20k vaccines amid foot-and-mouth disease outbreak

The Western Cape government has procured 20,000 vaccines amid the current foot-and-mouth disease outbreak.

Western Cape Premier Alan Winde and Agriculture MEC Ivan Meyer oversaw the mass vaccination of free-roaming livestock in Phesantekraal.

Winde said their campaign will focus on Makhaza and Mfuleni.

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The outbreak was declared a national state of disaster by President Cyril Ramaphosa during the State of the Nation Address (SONA) last Thursday.

Winde said the vaccines will be used for both protective and preventative measures to curb the spread of the disease.

"Days ago, we had our first case, immediately zoomed in, our Sate vets just explained exactly the process, vaccinate, contain. It has been in animals that are communal animals, so they move around quite a lot, so it's about how do we quarantine those animals."

Winde said the province will halt the auction of livestock for 21 days once receiving approval and gazetting is completed.

"You can still auction online but you're not going to have physical auctions and moving animals to auctions. We've also asked that we can now implement our permitting system, so any movement of animals you have to have a full permit system. We already have now for the last 10 days roadblocks around the province."