Listen here.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..Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. Register here.Support South Africa’s bastion of independent journalism, offering balanced insights on investments, business, and the political economy, by joining BizNews Premium. Register here.If you prefer WhatsApp for updates, sign up to the BizNews channel here..Edited transcript of the interview.Chris Steyn (00:01.196)Livestock farmers across South Africa remain desperate for the Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak to be contained. With me is Andrew Morphew, the spokesperson for FMD Response SA. Welcome, Andrew.Andrew Morphew (00:15.395)Thanks, Chris. Thanks for having me on.Chris Steyn (00:17.922)You're welcome. Let us go to that 90% statistic. Around 90 % of commercial beef farmers in KZN not having had access to State vaccines. What is the exact figure there, please?Andrew Morphew (00:36.431)Chris, so we worked off the figures from the KZN Department of Agriculture. We cross-referenced those against industry figures, and we got to a figure of about I think it was about six or seven percent of farmers, beef farmers, commercial beef farmers in KZN had had vaccines. So we then looked at that figure, we rounded it down to give ourselves a margin of error. And the figure that we published in our press release was 90% unvaccinated. And that is where that figure came from. And as far as I'm aware at the moment, the KZN department actually hasn't disputed that figure. They say they've started vaccinating beef herds now. There has been vaccination activity over the last week, but that figure is a verifiable figure from the department themselves.Chris Steyn (01:36.206)What about the rest of the KZN statistics?Andrew Morphew (01:40.73)So KZN is sitting on a lot of vaccines as far as we can tell. The Industry Coordinating Council says that one point three million doses have been distributed to the province, whereas just over six hundred thousand doses have been administered. So there are a lot of vaccines which are sitting in fridges. and this is one of the things that we've been trying to harp on about is we've got to the point in the rollout now where vaccines are no longer the thing that are holding us back. We really need to focus on how we get those vaccines into animals as fast as we possibly can. And using the private sector to do that is obviously the easiest and quickest way. And so to have that number of private commercial farmers with access to private vets that are able to administer those doses and not giving them the opportunity to do that slows down your rollout hugely.The other thing it does, and the thing that concerns us dramatically is that in KZN, commercial beef makes up about 40% of the cattle population. And if you're going around vaccinating, but you're leaving them out, you're leaving 40% of susceptible animals on the table for the virus to exploit and to stay alive in. And that is why we're seeing now that not just in KZN, but there are a number of cases across the country, where vaccinated herds, both dairy and beef, are being infected post vaccination because they are left with herds, with animals around them that are unvaccinated. They then become positive, they shed that virus and the vaccinated animals are then impacted. And we're spending, I mean, as a country we've committed billions of Rands to this. And to roll out too slowly to be effective is going to cost us a huge amount of money.Chris Steyn (03:38.776)How do the KZN statistics compare to the rest of the country? Do you have those now?Andrew Morphew (03:44.836)Yeah, so we do have statistics for the rest of the country. And if you have a look at the chart that the Industry Coordination Council has put out, KZN far and away as a proportion of doses received, has vaccinated a lot less cows. When you look at provinces like Limpop and the Free States and the Eastern Cape, it's a much closer margin, there's still discrepancies. Northwest might be a little bit worse. The Western Cape is very close to keeping up in terms of vaccinated animals and doses received, but KZN has received by far the most doses and the gap there is is very big.Chris Steyn (04:36.493)You mentioned earlier there's a discrepancy between the figures provided by the State, the Department of Agriculture, and the Industry Council. Is that correct?Andrew Morphew (04:48.239)So the Industry Coordinating Council has put together a dashboard which went live in the last few days. And I must really take my hat off to them. They've done an incredible job, one of presenting the figures, but two of presenting them honestly. And the discrepancies in those figures have been highlighted. And it is amazing the way that they have done it. But one of the things they've highlighted is that the Ministerial update on the twenty third. There was about over seven provinces. There was an 18% discrepancy between the ministerial update and the figures disclosed by the provinces individually. That adds up to about 400,000 doses, which is the difference between what the ministerial update gave us and what the individual provinces had said that they had vaccinated. So there might be a reason for that discrepancy, but we would like to try and see those gaps resolved and the numbers to line up a little bit better.Chris Steyn (05:57.58)Meanwhile, another 3.5 million doses have arrived. Have you seen any movement in the distribution of those?Andrew Morphew (06:06.722)We have not seen the ones that have just arrived. Now there are a lot of doses - and as I said in KZN, they are sitting on the biggest stockpile of doses. But in terms of commercial beef and KZN after our press release, there has been movement, but not a significant movement. So what we're hoping to see now is a real harnessing of private sector activity to enable, to get those doses out as fast as we possibly can. Because doses sitting in fridges are a liability. They if the fridge stops working, then they spoil. And all sorts of things that can happen that put those doses at risk. So what we need to do is take those doses off the airplane, distribute them directly as quickly as we possibly can and get them into animals. Now what we're seeing is the Department loves to publish doses received. And ironically, that is the one figure that the World Organisation for Animal Health doesn't actually want to know. They want to know that you have administered those and that you have achieved herd immunity. And to do that, you need to distribute the doses as quickly as you can, vaccinate at speed and scale, in order to vaccinate 90% of the animals in a region, ideally the entire country, within a short window, six to eight weeks in order to gain the eighty percent herd immunity that is required to stop the transmission of the disease. And that is what we need to see happening now.Chris Steyn (07:42.957)The total available doses now is 13.5 million.Andrew Morphew (07:50.819)That is what was published in the media over the weekend, yes, thirteen point five million doses in the country, as opposed to I think the Portfolio Committee reported three point eight million doses administered. So there's a massive discrepancy.Chris Steyn (08:04.557)And how many are needed? Remind us.Andrew Morphew (08:12.258)So to do the national herd twice, approximately 28 million doses, just depending on the number that you're using for the national herd. The the one that has been used kind of broadly is 14 million animals. So we now almost have enough vaccine in the country to do the national herd once. The minister in his last couple of press encounters has started to say that the goal is not one dose by the end of the year, but two, which we're incredibly happy about. That means that takes into account boosters, which we were very worried about. But that means that the first round needs to end quite soon in order to start the second round. We can't be vaccinating the first round of animals before we get onto boosters. We need to conclude the first round, start the boosters so that we can do that…we can vaccinate all the animals twice.Chris Steyn (09:10.989)Meanwhile, what is happening with private procurement now that the court has ordered that farmers are allowed to obtain the vaccines themselves?Andrew Morphew (09:22.424)So unfortunately, the … factor there is a vaccine itself. So there's a lead time from order to manufacture. And so there's going to be an element of time waiting now for vaccine to arrive in the country that is available for private community procurement. So we have called on the Department and the Minister to please make vaccine available. The department is obviously sitting on a very large stockpile of vaccine 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.Chris Steyn (10:06.893)At this rate, can you estimate how long it might take for South Africa to reach herd immunity?Andrew Morphew (10:14.168)Chris, it's very hard to say. The Industry Coordinating Council notes on their dashboard that the vaccine activity rate has slowed over the last period. And so we don't know, we haven't been privy to the figures of number of vaccinations per province per day, week, month, for the last period. So now that the dashboard is up, we'll be able to monitor that. but it doesn't make sense that activity should be slowing as huge amounts of vaccine arrive in the country. We need that activity to be really increasing at an astronomical rate because we need to do what to get those vaccines into animals and to conclude this first round as quickly as we possibly can now.Chris Steyn (11:02.679)Thank you. That was Andrew Morphew, the spokesperson for FMD Response SA, speaking to BizNews. I'm Chris Steyn. Thank you, Andrew.Andrew Morphew (11:12.601)Thank you, Chris. Thanks for having me on.