Minister of Agriculture, Mr John Steenhuisen, has approved new national Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) control measures on Thursday that will be gazetted soon. T
Minister of Agriculture, John Steenhuisen, has approved a comprehensive new national framework to manage Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD), introducing what government says is a more practical and science-based approach aimed at protecting animal health while limiting the economic damage caused by outbreaks.
The new control measures, approved on Thursday and expected to be gazetted shortly, consolidate all previous directives issued under Section 9 of the Animal Diseases Act, including the 2019 FMD Contingency Plan, subsequent amendments and related protocols.
Steenhuisen said the reforms would, for the first time, provide South Africa with a single integrated national framework governing how FMD outbreaks should be managed from detection through to recovery.
“For the first time, South Africa will have a single, integrated set of national control measures that clearly outline how outbreaks must be managed from detection through to recovery,” he said.
