The Minister of Agriculture held an emergency meeting on Friday with stakeholders via the National Animal Health platform and urgent action is being taken with private sector input to seek a solution and a way forward after the South African equine industry, amongst others, experienced a shortage of vaccines towards the end of last year.
South African Export Health Protocols Managing Director Adrian Todd explained the situation to the Sporting Post after recent media reports about the deterioration of yet another critical state-owned enterprise, Onderstepoort Biological Products (OBP).
The dominant source of animal vaccines in South Africa, OBP’s failure spells doom for our critical agriculture industry and while Mr Todd explains that this has very fortunately subsequently resolved, he cautions that the manufacturing capabilities of OBP do remain a serious concern as they are the only facility that manufactures the registered AHS vaccine.
The Daily Friend reports that a group of thirteen veterinary experts have signed an open letter, calling attention to the deteriorating circumstances at Onderstepoort Biological Products (OBP), a state-owned enterprise (SOE) which is the veterinary medicine production arm of the Onderstepoort veterinary research and training complex.
It is the primary source for many animal vaccines, to counter diseases such as African Horse sickness, Rift Valley fever, bluetongue disease, heartwater, anaplasmosis, red water, and lumpy skin disease. Some of these vaccines cannot be obtained anywhere else, domestic or foreign.
Now it seems some of them can no longer be obtained from OBP, either.
The consequences of OBP’s failures are grave.
A wet 2021/2022 season means that diseases spread by parasites are thriving, while many cattle, sheep, and horses remain unvaccinated against these diseases, and ‘face a very bleak 2022’.
In a press release published on 9 November 2021, the National Horseracing Authority noted that there was a shortage of African horse sickness (AHS) vaccine.
They stated that the OBP vaccine shortage has resulted in industry stakeholders such as vets, trainers, owners, and breeders having limited or no access to AHS vaccines.
As per the Fertilizers, Farm Feeds, Agricultural Remedies and Stock Remedies Act, 1947 (Act No. 36 of 1947), the OBP African horse sickness vaccine is the ONLY AHS vaccine registered for use in South Africa.
The use of unregistered products was strongly discouraged, regardess of their claimed properties, as the safety and efficacy of unregistered products have not been assessed in equines
The deadline for vaccinations as per Rule39.1.1 was extended from 31 October to 31 December 2021 for all horses that were resident in the AHS endemic/ infected zone.
