Andrew Morphew - Steenhuisen’s “stockpile of vaccines sitting” in State fridges

Livestock farmers across South Africa remain desperate for the Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak to be contained. In his latest interview with Chris Steyn, Andrew Morphew, the spokesperson for FMD Response SA, says: “The Industry Coordinating Council says that 1,3 million doses have been distributed to the province (KZN), whereas just over 600 000 doses have been administered. So there are a lot of vaccines which are sitting in fridges.” As for the whole country, Morphew says while there is a reported 13,5 million doses in the country currently, the Portfolio Committee has reported 3,8 million doses administered. “So there's a massive discrepancy…The department is obviously sitting on a very large stockpile of vaccines now. Make some of that available to the private sector so that people that want to vaccinate their animals can. Let us use the route that has been given to us by the court in order to get those vaccines into animals as fast as we possibly can.” Morphew reiterated that over 90% of commercial beef farmers in KZN had not had access to State vaccines, but “they say they've started vaccinating beef herds now”. Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen will give his update at a Press briefing today.