South Africa is facing a growing shortage of vaccines against Rift Valley Fever, bluetongue and horse sickness. But according to organised agriculture, this is a fixable problem.
Mzansi’s state supplier of vaccines, Onderstepoort Biological Products (OBP), is running out vaccines against against Rift Valley Fever, bluetongue and horse sickness.
According Francois Wilken, president of Free State Agriculture (FSA), this problem can lead to a crisis in the livestock production industry.
“The state currently has a monopoly on the supply of vaccines, but the government is failing to make sufficient vaccines available on time. As a result, agricultural producers cannot keep up with their vaccination programmes properly.”
According to OBP, the reasons for the growing shortage of vaccines are attributable to staff strikes, load shedding and a fault in their freeze dryer.
‘The private sector can help’
However, FSA says the problems at OBP point to management and skills shortages. “The only solution is that the private sector must be allowed to produce critical vaccines to prevent a crisis in the production of meat and animal products,” Wilken believes.
“It is not in the national interest that the state should be entrusted with a monopoly on the country’s animal health. The private sector laboratories already have capacity and expertise and can produce critical vaccines very soon.”
Wilken further states that the agricultural sector is increasingly struggling to gain timely access to sufficient vaccines.
This is not the first time that the state supplier of vaccines have reported shortages in vaccines. Earlier this year, OBP announced a shortage in availability of African horse sickness vaccine due to critical equipment challenges reported.
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