They say that necessity is the mother of invention, and here it must be said that the Botswana Vaccine Institute (BVI) and its partners have lived up to the adage.
Sharing a long border with a failed state has had its toll in nearly all spheres of life in Botswana, not least the cattle industry. Problems in neighbouring Zimbabwe have meant that the Botswana cattle industry bore the brunt of recurrent FMD outbreaks across the border. This, coupled with internal weaknesses in our abattoir system, has meant that exports to the lucrative European Union (EU) market are always interrupted, for months on end. The result has been a slump in the sector as BMC and cattle farmers feel the pinch of FMD control measures and loss of a high-income market. However, out of the gloom, BVI comes with the good news that Botswana is now an exporter of FMD medicine, turning adversity into a blessing. For it is possible that without the Zimbabwe factor, BVI could not have been so keen to develop the medicines that are now being sold to other countries. Most certainly, our facilities would not have been sufficiently developed to produce for the export market.
