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Veterinary Services Seeks US $4 Million for Vaccine

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The Herald (Harare)

August 16, 2002
Posted to the web August 16, 2002

The Department of Veterinary Services has forwarded a project document through the Food and Agriculture Organi-sation for donor funding amounting to US$4 million (about $220 million) for procurement of foot-and-mouth vaccines.

Veterinary Services director, Dr Stuart Hargreaves, told Ziana they forwarded the document last month and were hopeful of a favourable response.

"We need funding to the tune of US$4 million and we have put this through the FAO and prospects are bright that we will get it," said Dr Hargreaves.

He said foot-and-mouth disease was a worldwide disease and if not controlled would be threat to the whole region.

Therefore there was need for co-operation internationally.

Last week Zimbabwe received from Botswana 250 000 doses worth millions of dollars of the much needed foot-and-mouth vaccine which had run out in the country due to foreign currency shortages. The country needed about 3,4 million doses for the whole of Matabeleland North and South, and the Midlands. Uncontrolled cattle movement had resulted in increased incidents of foot and mouth.

Farmers had been advised not to move livestock illegally and to report any suspicious cases of foot-and-mouth to the department. The difficulty facing the department was the increased movement of cattle because of the drought, which had caused shortages in grazing pastures.

Another contributory factor was the free range grazing system, as cattle were no longer herded, as there were no crops in the fields.

The resettlement programme had also seen people moving from one area to another and these movements increased the risk of disease outbreak.

Beef exports to the European Union, pork and dairy product exports were banned following the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in some parts of Matebele-land North province last August.

Zimbabwe has an annual export quota of 9 100 tonnes of beef to the EU which earns the country about $2 billion in foreign currency.

Beef exports to regional markets such as Libya, the Democtratic Republic of Congo, and Malaysia were in progress.