VN October 2021

Vetnews | October 2021 27 controlled diseases over time and its record speaks for itself. We managed to prevent the spread of the first foreign FMD outbreak in the country in Camperdown, in KZN into the old Transkei, we efficiently managed the Avian Influenza outbreak in Ostriches and further we eradicated the CSF outbreak in pigs in later years. So, in short the State Veterinary Services in this province has had this capacity because it stuck to a proper and well prescribed system of maintaining an Early warning System which presupposes the presence of a“pre-empt rather than a post-empt”system of disease control. This capacity must now be brought to the fore!!! For this to function a whole effective system built under the GEMP guidelines was setup in the small town of Stutterheim in the famous Dohne Agricultural Research Centre to coordinate this. This consists of physical structures among others a response store to house all the necessary materials including vaccines, equipment, protective clothing, boots gloves, trailers and all those things needed during the first 72hrs of a controlled disease outbreak . Then we had a teamwhose job was to regularly review the diseases Contingency Plans and SOPS to ensure that these were inline with the current demands. The second arm of this unit had the job of collating all disease reports, mapping them out and providing a real-time report and alert to all stakeholders through the responsible state officials. The third arm of this unit was to support stakeholder education in peacetimes and social facilitation in outbreak (war) situations . These previous successes in disease control mentioned above in this province were to a large extent as a result of this setup which is unique in the country as attested to by the OIE PVS team, a United State Army Biomedical platoon as well as our international Twinning partners during their previous visits. So, in short one would have expected the Contingency plan for rabies with its corresponding SOPS to be activated immediately, which would have then opened up a whole “avalanche” of activities to ensure that this outbreak is put under control in order to avert a real catastrophe. By the way a report of a human death, a child has already been reported. Its still early days maybe the State Veterinary Services in the province will still do this!!!!!! We as a branch have stepped up and decided to donate R.50,000 towards the purchasing of rabies vaccine (plus publicity materials) and setting up a campaign to assist the provincial department with which we have a very good working relationship. Thanks to the responsible State Veterinarian of the area who has built up a superb rapport with his colleagues in private practice here. Our members in Gqeberha, have decided to donate their time to vaccinate animals for free as well as mounting visible campaigns around some of the affected areas and townships. It is important to note that the Gqeberha Metro management has noted our efforts and undertaken to support us with their resources. This initiative wouldn’t have been possible without the active participation of the branch management committee: Dr Leon de Bruyn for coordinating the purchasing of the vaccine, Dr Mark Pellissier for coordinating and planning the campaign, Walmer Vets ( Drs Mark Pellissier & Anmarie Kamfer) for making storage space available for the vaccine, Dr Marcel Synman for making the finances available, Dr Jared Strydom the responsible State Veterinarian and a committee member for maintaining all avenues open with the private veterinarians in the area and Ms Claudia Cloete (SAVA CVC) for facilitating the procurement of the vaccine. Individual practices are already vaccinating pets for free but the real field campaigns will commence during the 1 st week of October and the results of this will be reported in November. This is all in support of the state activities as well as the public and our communities. Lastly this outbreak underlines the need to have the following in place: a real-time disease reporting system (the current OIE reporting system is really outdated) an effective animal movement control, presence of an effective, well supported and resourced Animal Disease Early Warning Centre in every province, a proper information flow between the state vets, private vets as well as with the citizenry, a properly crafted effective message to send out to all the communities by the use of the available medium (handouts, radio, TV, the press, the modern web technologies) in case of such an outbreak and the presence of the central authority at all times. We must ensure that we tackle this outbreak with all that we have to ensure that this disease doesn’t entrench itself in our beautiful province as the case is in certain areas in the country. I would like to end this article with this cartoon and “no comment” for you to ponder: (Source: Pinterest) Keep safe and healthy, Ivan v DR. IVAN LWANGA-IGA (Dr. Med. Vet.; D. Admin in Public Administration) Technical Reference GroupMember: IDAM | LifeMember of The SouthAfricanVeterinary Association (SAVA) | Chairman: SAVA East Cape &Karoo Branch SAVA Branch News I SAVV Tak Nuus