Farai Mabeza, Senior Staff Writer 
ZIMBABWE will start administering a locally-produced vaccine against the devastating livestock January Disease at the end of the next rainy season, a top government official has said.
The country’s livestock production sector has been reeling from the disease whose scientific name is theileriosis and has claimed at least 500 000 cattle since 2015, according to official figures.
According to experts, cases of theileriosis tend to increase in January due to high rainfall activity, hence the name, January Disease.
The government however says the sector is now on a recovery path as deaths have declined over the last two years.
“At the moment I can say we are over the crest in that following tick grease application as well as intensive cattle dipping in all the affected areas we can say by and large the disease is in a way controlled but the final nail has to be hammered in,” veterinary services department chief director Josphat Nyika told The Financial Gazette last week.
“You might have heard about the commercial vaccine that we recently produced. We are at the terminal stages of its production. We will very soon be launching it starting obviously with the communal areas where the situation demands that we vaccinate.
“We can’t do it during the rainy season because there will be too much tick activity and there could be a flare up so it will be (done) soon after the next rainy season,” he added.
“Two years ago we had lots of cattle dying but we had a 39 percent reduction in deaths this year,” Nyika said.
He urged livestock producers across the country to adhere to prescriptions from cattle disease control experts.
“(We will win the battle) provided they (farmers) dip their cattle regularly as per the instruction of their local veterinary personnel.
“January Disease is transmitted by the brown air ticks. The ticks are still in the grazing lands so we need to continue dipping,” Nyika said.
He urged farmers to be even stricter with their dipping regimes during the rainy season.
Tick-borne diseases are responsible for huge economic losses in cattle assets and farm savings in Zimbabwe. They account for more than 60 percent of cattle deaths in the country.
“We currently have a strategy that was launched in April this year, the integrated tick and tick borne disease control strategy that employs a lot of strategies, plans and activities to deal with the problem once and for all,” Nyika said. newsdesk@fingaz.co.zw
