The shocking final report of the task team, which was appointed by Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Minister Thoko Didiza in 2021, carries a date stamp of 18 May 2022, but was widely released this week.
It said a common thread running through all the interviews of the task team with industry stakeholders, government officials and research establishments was that the "veterinary system and animal biosecurity system is broken".
"In its current format and design it poses a major threat to the future of inclusive growth in the livestock industry in South Africa."
The report said the evidence of the broken system could be ascribed to "systemic (institutional) issues, legislative constrains, budget problems, a trust deficit, non-alignment between stakeholders and execution and implementation failures".
"It is our observation that everyone – farmers, auctioneers, abattoirs, feedlots, industry bodies, veterinarians, education institutions, the minister, director-general, provincial authorities, traditional authorities – all agree that animal biosecurity in South Africa is in a crisis, and they all correctly diagnose the elements of the crisis."
No plan of action
But the report said that while everyone agreed with the reasons for the crisis, there seemed to be no dedicated plan to deal with it and "no effort to implement the corrective actions that have been recommended time and again".
It urged strong action, as well as consequence management, a "strong political will to affect change in leadership", and the employment a results-driven approach.
These revelations come in the same week that the red meat industry warned of a disaster facing the sector and food security in SA because of a shortage of vaccines.
DA MP Noko Masipa also criticised the long delay in the release of the report, saying Didiza had initially promised to release it at the end of April last year.
Masipa said the report came without a plan of action from Didiza's department.
It was also "too little too late" for many horse and sheep farmers who have "already lost their herds because they were unable to vaccinate on time due to the shortages of the African horse sickness and blue tongue vaccines".
SHORTAGE OF STRATEGIC VACCINES CAUSES DISASTER IN THE RED MEAT INDUSTRY - South Africa
The livestock industry is experiencing carnage because of promises of vaccines that were not kept.
He said the DA wanted the department to urgently release an "implementation plan" with a scorecard linked to it.
Reggie Ngcobo, spokesperson for the department and for the minister, said the comment from the DA was "unfounded" and "far from the truth", adding that the "minister never sat on the report".
Ngcobo said the report was released by the task team, but that officials from the department had to "engage on issues of disagreement on the report, which they felt were not factual".
Once they had "found each other" on these issues, the report was then sent for editing.
"It was only in April this year that it was given to the minister for her consideration and she released it on 9 May 2023, with an action plan on how to deal with the challenges raised by the ministerial task team."
Serious problems flagged
Some of the main problems flagged in the task team's report included "poor and unscientific decision-making by officials" as well as bad coordination between national and provincial governments and a slow response to emergency situations.
There was also poor maintenance of red line and border fences, laboratory infrastructure and equipment and research facilities.
It said there was no risk analysis unit within the department to be "able to analyse diseases and relevant data for disease productions and timely containment and preventative actions".
Other major problems were the non-availability of vaccines for notifiable diseases as well as the "non-compliance by livestock owners in applying on-farm biosecurity measures to prevent the introduction or spread of animal diseases".
There was also a lack of control over the movement of animals from areas infected with diseases, as well as "inadequate or non-compliance at points of animal sales" to verify the "health status of animals".
It said another problem was the "lack of understanding of harmonising of disease control needs with that of traditional beliefs and concepts in communal areas and in peri-urban areas of South Africa".
The task team said that throughput its discussions with various stakeholders, there had been continuous reference to the provincialisation of veterinary services and lack of coordination between the national director of animal health and the provinces.
Some provinces such as Gauteng, the Western Cape and the Northern Cape "operate reasonably well with very good inspection teams, very good diagnosis and good laboratory systems", but other areas such as Limpopo, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal were experiencing "systemic failures".
The report said there were six core problems, among them a lack of a clear chain of command because of duplication and overlapping responsibilities and coordination functions.
Others included a lack of transparency in the policy formulation of veterinary operational policies, procedures and notices, as well as a lack of contingency planning and the timeous communication of critical interventions.
The decision-making processes were "characterised by a lack of trust between stakeholders, especially those between the public and private sectors" and there was also a "tendency to favour international obligations at all cost over domestic realities".
The task team also suggested more than 20 short-term recommendations in its report to address the crisis, including a meeting between the minister and the relevant MECs of all provinces to "discuss interim measures to establish the chain of command, allocation of funding, movement control and the designation of responsibilities".
Among the recommendations, was one for the urgent establishment of an animal health biosecurity plan, which should "include alternative options to ensure biosecurity such as vaccination to control the spread of disease".
It recommended actively enforcing regulatory compliance for disease management throughout the value chain, as well as reinstating a "rigorous and effective system to control the movement of animals out of disease control areas".
It also called for the establishment of animal disease emergency fund, and also called for an evaluation and assessment of the management of key staff in the national and provincial veterinary offices.
The report said an independent risk analysis unit should also be established in the department for the "implementation of an early warning system" and that alternative possibilities to expedite the production of foot-and-mouth disease vaccines should be explored.
It also said corrective actions had be enforced to "address the vaccine shortage created by the various problems and dilemmas" at the state-run Onderstepoort Biological Products (OBP) facility. This facility is the only producer of African horse sickness and Rift Valley fever vaccine, as well as vaccines for blue-tongue disease, which mostly affects sheep and cattle.
Breakdowns at Onderstepoort Biological Products facility
The shortage problems at OBP are related to the breakdown of three vaccine production lines at the facility, with the Red Meat Producers' Organisation saying in a statement on 5 May that the "shortage of strategic vaccines in the livestock and animal industries has now caused a state of disaster in the red meat industry".
"Commercial and emerging producers are now suffering serious losses due to blue-tongue outbreaks which cause up to 50% mortality among herds and African horse sickness among horses and donkeys, which play a supporting role in the production process of red meat" said RPO chairperson James Faber.
He also said the organisation had "warned and predicted this would happen due the shortage of supply of certain vaccines" that are only produced by OBP.
But JSE-listed Aspen Pharmacare confirmed to News24 on Monday it had sent its engineers and technical staff in to help fix three production lines at OBP on a pro bono basis at the request of the department.
Aspen Pharmacare group senior executive Stavros Nicolaou said the liquid vaccine line at Onderstepoort had already been fixed and that one of the lines that produces freeze-dried vaccines in powder form was also "back up and running".
He said the group's technical team was still working on the third line and "exploring various options" to fix it, adding that Aspen hoped that having at "least two lines up and running will hopefully nip the problem in the bud".
Aspen would continue helping the department on a pro bono basis with technical expertise, but Nicolaou said the company had no intention of entering the animal vaccine market.
Not only were the compositions and requirements of animal vaccines different to the human ones that the company produced, but he said that Aspen would not in any case in terms of international protocols be able to make them at facilities that also made human vaccines.
Nicolaou said none of clients around the world would consequently accept human vaccines if they were made in the same facilities that made animal ones.
Ngcobo said the OBP had "some challenges with producing some vaccines, and blue tongue vaccine is one of them".
He said engagements with Aspen were continuing "for technical support and not vaccine production". Ngcobo also added that a new privately-produced blue tongue disease vaccine, not linked to the OBP, was also registered on 9 May this year.
