South Africa starts mass cattle vaccination program to halt foot-and-mouth outbreak

Описание: (7 Mar 2026)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Johannesburg - 7 March 2026
1. Wide of farmers herding cattle
2. Wide of cattle being inspected by veterinarian workers
3. Close of a veterinarian injecting a cow
4. Mid of South African Minister of Agriculture John Steenhuisen and veterinary team addressing media
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Vuyiswa Ramokgopa, MEC (Member of the Executive Council) for Agriculture and Rural Development:
"So today we're actually visiting a communal farm in the east of Johannesburg. This area is called Magagula Heights and there are a number of different farmers who farm cattle from here and we are doing our vaccination drive here. We've actually just vaccinated, I think about 120 cattle today alone and the vaccination drive continues. We have been going to different areas, but this was one of our priority areas because of the importance of communal farms and communal farmers in terms of how we actually contain the spread in the province."
6. Wide of cattle being inspected by farmers and veterinarians
7. Close of veterinarian administering treatment to cattle
8. SOUNDBITE (English) John Steenhuisen, South African Minister of Agriculture:
"We aim to vaccinate 80% of the national herd by December and reduce the outbreaks by 70%. This new strategy will put South Africa onto the path of becoming an FMD (Foot-Mouth Disease) free with vaccination country, which will mean that we can start to open up international markets for South African red meat products that have been closed for many decades."

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Pretoria, South Africa - 27 February 2026
9. Mid of cattle feeding
10. Wide of cattle herder managing livestock
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Dr. Dirk Verwoerd, veterinarian at Karan Beef:
"The most serious is the damage in the feet, and it's right inside the feet and this is where we unfortunately had to shoot hundreds of cattle for welfare reasons. The feet came off, the hooves actually came off, which is very, very tragic. So it's beyond just, you know, a disease that heals again and you carry on. It's far beyond that so there are major impacts in that process to the production. The average daily gain is severely impacted. The conversion rates or the economy of what you do in a feedlot is severely impacted."
12. Mid of cattle feeding
13. Wide of cattle resting in a field
14. Aerial of cattle in a field ++MUTE++
STORYLINE:
South Africa embarked on a mass vaccination of cattle on Friday to stem an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease that threatens meat, dairy and livestock supplies and exports.

The outbreak, which started intensifying late last year and has rapidly spread across the country's livestock industry, has already affected more than 297,000 cattle and resulted in over 120,000 animals being culled as farmers try to contain the spread.

The outbreak threatens mass shortages of meat, job losses and millions of dollars in lost revenue as countries including China and Zambia ban South African meat exports.

Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen on Friday launched the country’s rollout of vaccines, with a million vaccines delivered from Turkey in recent days.

More vaccines are expected to arrive this weekend, but there are concerns that the supply is significantly less than the required doses to vaccinate almost 12 million cattle.

“We aim to vaccinate 80% of the national herd by December and reduce the outbreaks by 70%. This new strategy will put South Africa onto the path of becoming an FMD (Foot-Mouth Disease) free with vaccination country,” said Steenhuisen on Saturday.









AP video by Alfonso Nqunjana



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