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outbreaks of Foot and Mouth disease along the countries’ borders.
Botswana, South Africa, Zambia, Mozambique and Zimbabwe met and resolved to work together to deal with outbreak of the disease.
The joint initiative comes hot on the heels of an outbreak of the disease in Matabeleland North, Masvingo and Chimanimani while it has also been reported in the KwaZulu-Natal Province of South Africa.

Botswana has since assisted Zimbabwe with vaccines for joint vaccinations as the two countries fight to defend their beef industries.
“We appreciate the gesture by Botswana who are also exporters of beef like us,” Agriculture, Mechanisation and Irrigation Development Minister Joseph Made commented in Harare on Tuesday of last week.

Minister Made said his ministry would work closely with the Department of National Parks, the custodians of buffaloes that are vectors of the disease.
“We need to ensure that National Parks maintains fences to keep buffaloes in their traditional areas while we also closely monitor the incidences of veld fires that are destroying pastures and forcing the buffaloes to wander out of the parks in search of forage,” said Minister Made.

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He said the sighting of a buffalo in Buhera recently was very disturbing as it could mean the spread of the disease to the district.
Minister Made, however, said Foot and Mouth was still confinable as it was moving from the peripheral areas of the country into the interior.

Foot and Mouth disease or hoof-and-mouth disease (Aphtae epizooticae) is an infectious and sometimes fatal viral disease that affects cloven-hoofed animals, including domestic and wild bovids.
The virus causes a high fever for two or three days, followed by blisters inside the mouth and on the feet that may rupture and cause lameness.
Foot and Mouth disease is a severe plague for animal farming since it is highly infectious and can be spread by infected animals through aerosols, through contact with contaminated farming equipment, vehicles, clothing or feed, and by domestic and wild predators.

Its containment demands considerable efforts in vaccination, strict monitoring, trade restrictions and quarantines, and occasionally the elimination of millions of animals.
Susceptible animals include cattle, buffalo, sheep, goats, pigs, antelope, deer and bison.
It has also been known to infect hedgehogs and elephants and llama and alpaca may develop mild symptoms, but are resistant to the disease and do not pass it on to others of the same species.

In laboratory experiments, mice and rats and chickens have been successfully infected by artificial means, but it is not believed that they would contract the disease under natural conditions.
Humans are very rarely affected.

Infection occurs when the virus particle is taken into a cell of the host.
The cell is then forced to manufacture thousands of copies of the virus, and eventually bursts, releasing the new particles in the blood.
The virus is highly variable, which limits the effectiveness of vaccination.