The Free State has officially overtaken KwaZulu-Natal as the epicentre of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreaks in the country with 277 active outbreaks, compared with 202 in KwaZulu-Natal.

The Portfolio Committee on Agriculture confirms it will be visiting the Free State to conduct oversight on the management of the outbreak.

Since President Cyril Ramaphosa declared FMD a national disaster on February 12, the committee has requested weekly briefings from the Department of Agriculture (DoA).

Having received the latest update on the status of FMD outbreaks across the country by DoA on March 3, the portfolio committee asked that the DoA implement an urgent nationwide awareness campaign for both communal and commercial farmers to educate communities on the spread and containment of the disease.

Particularly, the committee is concerned about farmers buying vaccines that may be ineffective against the FMD strain infecting cattle in South Africa.

The committee heard that outbreaks are increasing in all provinces, with 935 active outbreaks across the country and two in Lesotho.

The outbreak requires that 14-million cattle be vaccinated. The DoA confirmed that it has been distributing vaccines across all provinces since late February.

The committee says the DoA should never again be reliant on a single service provider for vaccines and that storage for incoming vaccines must be done safely and effectively.

The DoA confirms that vaccines arriving in South Africa are stored in the Onderstepoort Biological Products facility and are distributed from there to ensure safe storage.

The committee is overall satisfied with the DoA’s rollout of the mass vaccination programme to combat FMD.

So far, 17 000 cattle have been vaccinated in Limpopo; 3 010 in the Eastern Cape; 824 in the Northern Cape; 13 913 in the Western Cape; 119 300 in the Free State; 61 225 in North West; 11 494 in KwaZulu-Natal; and 1 700 in Gauteng.

Currently, FMD risk is being determined on a municipal level using a risk-based model developed by epidemiologists. Heatmaps are being generated that classify primary, secondary and tertiary risks of FMD outbreaks.

About 3.7-million cattle across the country are currently in the primary risk category, while 7.2-million are in the secondary category and 1.5-million in the tertiary category. The majority of the primary risk cattle (43%) are still in KwaZulu-Natal.

Of the 2.5-million doses expected by the DoA to arrive in South Africa by the end of February, 10% were allocated for “emergencies” in the Western Cape, Northern Cape and Limpopo, and 90% were allocated to primary priority targets.

Provinces are being supplied with lists of primary municipal areas for vaccination.