Always Foot In Mouth

Back in September last year, when measures were first put in place for the control of the current outbreak of foot and mouth disease, I was impressed. Travelling up from Batoka, there was a checkpoint at Monze, one at Magoye and a final one at Kafue. Each of these checkpoints had well-wet straw for disinfecting the vehicle wheels and each of them had containers of clean water for rinsing ones hands after they had been washed with the muti. Travelling south, the check point near Kalomo not only had straw, but also a knapsack sprayer where they sprayed the wheels of your vehicle.

Now, you might wonder, why I was so impressed (I’m wondering myself) but I have memories from previous foot and mouth outbreaks of dirty, murky buckets of some unknown brown fluid in which we were expected to rinse our hands and from which we were more like to catch some horrible disease. It was for this reason that I was impressed and, always trying to look on the positive side of things, was happy to believe that for once, one of our Government departments had finally got its act together and that we would see the foot and mouth outbreak contained within a small area.

But, over the last few weeks, these measures seem to have fallen by the wayside. No completely, but enough to be of absolutely no use.

First to go were the check points at Monze and Magoye, but the one at Kafue remained. This was acceptable because the fight to halt the spread from the Namwala district had been lost so it was pointless having those check points. But obviously, the one at Kafue had to remain.  Yet, on some trips up from the Southern Province, I have been stopped at Kafue and asked to wash my hands and walk over the piece of wet foam rubber. On the next trip, I might find that I only have to walk over the foam rubber. Next time around, I have to wash my hands again and so on until finally one day, I was not even stopped. But the next time around, I had, once again, to wash my hands and clean my shoes on the foam.

It would appear, sadly, that the Veterinary Department, despite an initial burst of action, has not been able to sustain it. One wonders about the implications to Zambia’s livestock industry; the implications to the villagers in the Southern Province who cannot afford not to sell their cattle and who, therefore, cannot afford not to have this outbreak controlled.

When, one must ask, is Government going to get its act together?

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