Aucamp opens door to private foot-and-mouth vaccinations

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JEREMY MAGGS: Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) has become one of the biggest threats facing South African agriculture, disrupting livestock movements, threatening export markets and costing farmers millions of rand.

Now, just weeks after taking office, the Agriculture Minister Willie Aucamp has already announced a major shift in government policy, opening the door to private vaccine imports and administration, all in an effort to get the outbreak under control.

Listen/read: ‘Consequences are dire’ if new agriculture minister doesn’t address FMD bottlenecks

But is that enough? And how quickly can confidence be restored within the community itself?

Minister, a very warm welcome to you. Within days of taking office, you moved quickly to settle litigation, allow private vaccine procurement and administration. I just want to know whether that was because you concluded the department’s previous policy was either legally indefensible, scientifically wrong, or simply failing very angry farmers.

WILLIE AUCAMP: Jeremy, when I became the minister, I had a good, proper look at what the situation is with foot-and-mouth and all the measures that’s been put in place to curb it.

I’ve obviously had briefings with legal teams and with experts in the field, and I invited the three litigants against the department, and I said, let’s sit around the table and see how we can get around this.

The most important thing for me was to see how we can get vaccines, firstly in the country faster. Secondly, how we can distribute it faster, and thirdly, how we can vaccinate animals faster.

Those three pillars were the core pillars of what we’ve agreed with each other. There obviously are a lot of challenges, and we knew from day one that government on its own will not be able to take this foot-and-mouth disease on. We need to have the buy-in and input from the private sector as well.

JEREMY MAGGS: Your predecessor (John Steenhuisen), Minister, defended the tight state control over vaccines. You, as you’ve just said, effectively reversed that position. Was there a specific thing that you saw in your first week or so that persuaded you that the old approach was simply a bad one and had to be abandoned?

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WILLIE AUCAMP: In terms of the law – and that is one thing that we said in the settlement meeting with each other – everything that we do must adhere to the law, and it must allow us to still apply under WOAH (World Organisation for Animal Health) for foot-and-mouth-free classification.

The law is clear: the vaccine can only be implemented or applied by an authorised person. Then the law goes further and says that that authorised person is the director of animal health (Dr Mpho Maja) in the department.

But the law does not stop there.

The law makes provision for instances where the minister can, with the cooperation of the director of animal health, and via her, then expand that delegation of who becomes an authorised person.

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That is precisely what we’ve done. We’ve said that farmers may apply, we can’t do that [for] every farmer, they must apply to become authorised persons, and in that application, provide us with a certain amount of information, which will then allow the director of animal health to approve that application.

That is precisely what we’ve done. So I think that is the main shift is we’ve looked at provisions that will allow farmers to become authorised people and then apply the vaccinations themselves.

JEREMY MAGGS: And you’re confident, Minister, that the regulation within that system is going to work? Can you guarantee that this liberalisation that you’re talking about isn’t going to produce a chaotic vaccination free-for-all, which is the last thing I imagine you want?

WILLIE AUCAMP: Definitely. I can guarantee you that that is the case. There will not be a free-for-all.

Every farmer who wants to vaccinate his animals himself must apply. He or she must give a certain amount of information – I say he or she, we’ve got very good female farmers in the country – they must also, five days prior to injecting his animals with the vaccine, they must give notice thereof, and 14 days thereafter he must give feedback.

But the farmer or the farm manager, whoever applied and whoever was appointed as an authorised person has got a list of feedback information that must be provided.

If that feedback is not provided, that person will not get vaccines. So new vaccine supplies to them will be subject to adherence of that. If they don’t reply in time, we will follow up with them as well as the veterinarians who they are working with.

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So what we’ve got now, Jeremy, is vaccines coming in quicker because we’ve said that government nor Onderstepoort Biological Products will insist on exclusive import agreements, so that opens a new channel for imports.

We’ve also said that distribution will now be quicker because in the past, all vaccines had to go via Onderstepoort Biological Products before it could be distributed in the country.

Now, a private entity that brings in the vaccine can distribute it throughout the country themselves. So it will get to the veterinarians’ offices quicker, and then farmers can order it from their veterinarians’ offices.

That veterinarian must also provide feedback on who they supplied vaccines to. So I’m quite sure that the system is foolproof. We’ve got an online application system. Nobody will get vaccines who, in terms of the law, is not allowed to get vaccines.

JEREMY MAGGS: Your clock, though, Minister is ticking. Government says it wants to vaccinate 80% of the national herd,  roughly 14 million I think is the figure I read. Could you tell me how many doses are physically available as we speak today? How many animals are being vaccinated each week and on what date do you expect to reach that 80% target?

WILLIE AUCAMP: So up to now, roughly 13.5 million vaccines came into the country. Roughly eight million animals have been vaccinated. In certain areas we are busy with the booster vaccination that’s going on.

The Milk Producers’ Organisation, Mr Fanie Ferreira, contacted me last week. They had certain new outbreaks.

We’ve got 1 385 000 dairy cows in the country. They have already received 1.4 million vaccines. So every dairy cow has been vaccinated once.

We have agreed that we will now start with a speedy rollout of the booster vaccination for all the dairy cattle, because we saw the severe effect that this disease had on the dairy cattle.

It’s also important that we then monitor the effectiveness of that vaccine after it’s been administered.

So if you look at the target of 80%, already we are standing at roughly eight million and vaccines are coming in very fast now. We’ve got 1.5 million vaccines that came in last week. There are on order from either government or other vaccine producing companies or import companies, roughly four million vaccines.

So in the past, there was a problem with not having enough vaccines, I think we have crossed that the river, and we are now in a place where we can more readily distribute vaccines.

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As I said, with what’s been put in place, this will now be distributed easier. I think the big bottleneck was the application thereof.

The veterinarians, both state veterinarians and private veterinarians, there were not enough to go out to every farm. Now the farmer can go there, they can collect their vaccinations, and they can go and vaccinate these animals, which will definitely put us in a much better position to reach our target than what we were before.

JEREMY MAGGS: Minister, let me finish with this, you were taken to court or your department was taken to court because farmers believed it was obstructing them from protecting their own herds. I think that’s common cause. Will you now apologise for the losses caused while government resisted private procurement? And would there be any compensation for farmers who lost animals?

WILLIE AUCAMP: Look, Jeremy, this is a difficult question for me because I was not the minister at that stage. I can only apply my mind on what I can do, and what I can do is to take hands with the sector, to look for plans.

My approach has always been one of inclusivity. I believe that we’ve got farmers who are reasonable and once you sit around the table with them, you’ll get to solutions. That is exactly what we’ve managed to do here.

So I would not like to pronounce myself on what’s been done before I became the minister. I can just pronounce myself on what I am doing and what the department is doing here.

So we are going forward with what we’ve settled here and implemented. I’ve had discussions with the rest of the industry, with all the farming organisations – AgriSA, the TLU, FMD Response, Richard Morphew.

Listen/read: Foot-and-mouth crisis triggers SA’s biggest ever cattle vaccination

I’ve met with the Ministerial Task Team as well as with the Industry Coordination Council on this. Everybody is on the same page, and I think that is a huge step forward where we’re not fighting each other in court or there’s no difference in opinions about the approach.

Everybody is fighting in the same dugouts and we’re fighting one enemy and that is this disease.

JEREMY MAGGS: Agriculture Minister Willie Aucamp thank you very much indeed.

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