Anaplasmosis ravages cattle in Ngamiland

BONIFACE KEAKABETSE
Correspondent | Friday February 25, 2011 00:00

MAUN: Farmers are losing hundreds of cattle to Anaplasmosis as the department of Veterinary Services in Maun reports that it is facing a shortage in drugs to fight the disease.

Addressing the Maun Administrative Authority (MAA) council chairman Galaletsang Mhapha has urged farmers to buy drugs to treat the animals from officially approved retailers.

Mhapha said the district is experiencing an explosion of ticks particularly a brown tick, which causes Anaplasmosis.  He said although farmers have reported losing hundreds of cattle due to the disease, the figure is probably higher as some animals probably succumbed to the disease while in the bush and have gone unreported. He said cattle mortalities have been recorded in Kareng and Bodibeng. He added that unfortunately the livestock Advisory center in Maun has run out of drugs.  'I would like to urge farmers to dip their livestock to reduce the ticks and treat animals as early as possible,' Mhapha stated.

On the status of the Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD), he said the disease has stabilised as the last case in Ngamiland was recorded in Novemeber, 2009. The region is, however, still on alert due to the poor status of the buffalo fence, which results in increased incidents of buffalo wandering into the livestock area. Buffalo are carriers of FMD virus.

Last year flooding and heavy rains affected cattle vaccination coverage as crushes such as Soda and Moruleng were inaccessible. Heavy rains also affected the commencement of a district FMD vaccination campaign, which was scheduled to start in February, but eventually postponed to March due to the rains.   He said the department has, however, finished vaccinating cattle at crushes on the fringes of the delta before the yearly flood comes.  Water levels in the Okavango River are said to have already risen to 26.7 cm, which is more than the last year figure, which indicates the possibility of a bigger flood.

Briefing the house on the operations of the Maun abattoir, Mhapha said the Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) has started slaughtering cattle at the facility. The Maun abattoir was reopened last year after 14 years of closure to provide a market to the farmers who were unable to sell their livestock anywhere since the FMD outbreak in the district in 2008. He said a committee chaired by the department of veterinary services and BMC has been formed to preside over quota allocations for buying cattle for slaughter at the Abattoir. Due to the high demand for quotas and low capacity of the abattoir, farmers may wait for 3-4 years after being given a quota before getting another to sell to the abattoir. Farmers are allocated a quota of only 10 cattle to sell to the abattoir.