Zimbabwe's lack of cattle vaccines alarms neighbours

The lack of foreign currency to buy animal vaccines has led to the outbreak of a variety of highly contagious cattle diseases in Zimbabwe that are threatening to spread throughout Southern Africa. Controllable livestock diseases like blackwater fever, heartwater and tick-borne diseases have drastically reduced Zimbabwe's national herd from around six million in 2001 to less than 250,000 today. Despite laws requiring the acquisition of veterinary service permits for people wishing to move livestock from one place to another, the lack of effective monitoring and alleged bribe-taking by officials has led to the unchecked movement of stock, resulting in the failure of the control programme, observers said. The government is remaining tight-lipped about an outbreak of contagious bovine pleuro-pneumonia (CBPP), or cattle lung disease, which was reportedly detected in the northwestern district of Tsholotsho in Matabeleland North province two weeks ago. Joseph Made, Minister of Lands, Agriculture and Rural Resettlement, said he had not received any conclusive information. The reported outbreak has caused alarm across Southern Africa. Last week Botswana ordered its department of veterinary services to go on full alert to prevent a spillover of the disease, as has been the case with previous foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreaks in Zimbabwe. Local media reports in Botswana say the lung disease scare is being taken seriously, as it follows a confirmed outbreak in southern Zambia three weeks ago. Philemon Motsu, the Botswana deputy director of Animal Health and Production, said the country had intensified disease surveillance patrols at border entry points. "We have not detected the cattle lung disease as yet, but we are on full alert and we will do our best to prevent it from spreading into Botswana." Zimbabwe remains under FMD quarantine. Cattle shows, once a major attraction at the annual Zimbabwe International Trade Fair (ZITF), are banned. As disease outbreaks continue to spread, Stuart Hargreaves, the director of the Zimbabwe Veterinary Services Department, told IRIN that the government had failed to secure funding for a comprehensive animal disease control and vaccination programme. "Government has not been able to secure money for the importation of all basic livestock vaccines from the Botswana Vaccines Institute. I cannot give the exact figure required for vaccination and control programmes, but FMD remains a major problem across the country," Hargreaves said. A senior disease surveillance and control officer in Zimbabwe's Livestock Production Unit, within the ministry of agriculture, told IRIN: "There is no improvement - outbreaks are becoming more rampant. Previously controlled diseases are re-emerging, and there is nothing we can do because there are no medicines. The little money that is there is in local currency, yet we need foreign currency to import vaccines. Communal dipping services remain suspended and we cannot promise farmers any help at the moment." He added that FMD had become a permanent threat, and encouraged farmers who could import vaccines to do so and consult the department for assistance in vaccinating their animals. Coupled with the collapse of commercial cattle production due to farm invasions and acquisitions since February 2000, Zimbabwe's failure to control diseases has also led to the loss of a number of lucrative beef export deals. The European Union stopped importing beef from Zimbabwe shortly after the FMD outbreak in 2001, while Malaysia, Libya, Iran, the Democratic Republic of Congo and other emerging markets have also slapped embargoes on Zimbabwean beef products. Repeated CBPP outbreaks are fast becoming a regional problem. The cases in Zambia and Zimbabwe follow a similar outbreak in October last year at the Linyanti Park in northern Namibia, but it was quickly controlled.