Farmers Building up Resistance

Voices From Africa to the Foot-and Mouth Disease

The Ugandan Charles Onyango-Obbo is just one of many of his countrymen who wonder at what they consider to be the European’s panic-stricken reactions to foot-and mouth disease. This disease is not uncommon in Africa. The way in which it is commonly dealt with is by quarantining contaminated areas and mass vaccination.

Epidemic not eradicated
Foot-and-mouth disease has been eradicated in only very few of the sub-Saharan countries. It continues to crop up endemically and it is not regarded as anything particularly special,’ explains Friedrich Mahler, animal expert for the European Commission in Kenya’s capital city of Nairobi. ‘The preventive measures taken by mass livestock breeders do not differ much from those in Europe’, he confirms. ‘Animals are placed in quarantine and are not transported.’
Only recently a report appeared in the Government’s newsletter about three suspected cases in the north of Kenya. ‘In such a case the animals’ movements are restricted and people remain calm’, says Mahler.
The panic reaction in Western Europe is not so much based on the nature of the disease itself, but on its effect on exports. A country that imports infected animals risks contaminating its own livestock with FMD. Mass vaccination means that a country loses its FMD-free status for the world market. Kenyan farmers have nothing to fear in this respect; they produce exclusively for local markets.