Zambia has slammed its border shut to all South African livestock and related products in an urgent biosecurity move, as a devastating foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreak spreads across South Africa, prompting Pretoria to declare a national disaster.<\/p>\n
The Zambian Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock announced the suspension with immediate effect, revoking all previously issued import permits.<\/p>\n
“The ministry has suspended all livestock import permits from South Africa following the outbreak of FMD in that country,” said spokesperson Benny Munyama.<\/p>\n
The ban extends beyond live animals to include livestock feeds, trophies, skins, hides, and cloven-hoofed animal products such as dairy\u2014unless strict mitigation measures are implemented.<\/p>\n
Transit of live animals from South Africa through Zambia has also been halted.<\/p>\n
South Africa declares national disaster<\/strong><\/p>\n The drastic measure follows President Cyril Ramaphosa’s declaration of the FMD crisis as a national disaster during his State of the Nation Address.<\/p>\n The outbreak has now spread to all nine provinces, with the Western and Northern Capes implementing quarantine measures at affected farms.<\/p>\n Ramaphosa acknowledged this as “among the worst outbreaks” the country has experienced, establishing a task team of farmers and experts to report monthly on progress.<\/p>\n Vaccination drive underway<\/strong><\/p>\n To contain the spread, South Africa plans to vaccinate 14 million cattle over 12 months using 28 million doses.<\/p>\n The government is importing vaccines from Botswana, T\u00fcrkiye, and Argentina while local producer Onderstepoort ramps up production.<\/p>\n The outbreak has already battered South Africa’s beef industry, with exports to China plummeting 69% last year following Beijing’s import ban.<\/p>\n Zambian authorities say their precautionary measures will be reviewed based on the outbreak’s progression in South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Zambia has slammed its border shut to all South African livestock and related products in an urgent biosecurity move, as a devastating foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreak spreads across South Africa, prompting Pretoria to declare a national disaster. The Zambian Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock announced the suspension with immediate effect, revoking all previously issued import […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":12874,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":6,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Africa News","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,2854,30],"tags":[4864,122,394],"class_list":["post-19831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-health","category-southern-africa","tag-foot-and-mouth-disease-fmd","tag-south-africa","tag-zambia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19831"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19831\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19832,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19831\/revisions\/19832"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}