Steenhuisen says they aim to vaccinate 80% of cattle by end of year

Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen says they aim to vaccinate 80% of the national herd of 14 million cattle by the end of the year, which is expected to reduce the number of cases of foot and mouth by 70%.

He says South Africa needs 28 million doses of foot and mouth disease vaccine this year in order to take a major step in breaking the back of the countrywide outbreak.

Steenhuisen on Friday visited the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands to monitor the roll-out of a mass vaccination campaign to fight the disease.

VISUALS | The Minister of Agriculture, John Steenhuisen is officially launching South Africa’s nationwide mass vaccination campaign against Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) in Howick, KwaZulu-Natal Midlands.

Credit: Mlondi Radebe pic.twitter.com/b9Re36nKS9

— SABC News (@SABCNews) February 27, 2026

There are commitments to supply 13.5 million doses already.

Steenhuisen says experts recommend mass vaccination, rather than chasing new cases.

“The key strategy that they came forward with and the one that they recommended, and the one that we ultimately adopted, is the mass vaccination strategy so that we can get ahead of foot and mouth disease in South Africa. And ensure that we can prevent outbreaks from happening rather than reacting to outbreaks. It’s a similar model to what was used in Argentina and Brazil when foot and mouth was wildly out of control,” adds Steenhuisen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkfj57Ugl90