South Africa: Farmers and State Clash Over Response to Cattle Disease

What the report says

South African farmers and the state are disputing how the country is handling a severe foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in cattle, with the main disagreement centering on testing, vaccine matching and who should control the data. The reporting from GroundUp, republished by AllAfrica, says the Agricultural Research Council’s Onderstepoort veterinary campus has not sent FMD samples to the UK’s Pirbright Institute since January, even though Pirbright is the international reference lab that publishes analyses used to track virus changes and guide vaccine updates.

Farmers and veterinarian advocates argue that without regular independent analysis, it is harder to verify whether imported vaccines from Argentina and Turkey still match circulating strains. They also question whether the ARC faces a conflict of interest because it both monitors the disease and has begun producing FMD vaccines again after many years. The ARC rejects that criticism, saying it already performs its own surveillance and vaccine matching, and that the strains identified earlier this year remain in circulation without major genetic or antigenic change.

The dispute matters because South Africa is facing a major animal-health challenge and vaccination is seen as central to slowing transmission. The report says the country has imported millions of doses this year and has vaccinated much of the dairy herd at least once, but farmers say wider, sustained coverage is still needed. More broadly, the issue highlights the tension between public monitoring, private vaccine supply and the need for transparent disease data during an outbreak.