Page 84 - University of Pretoria RESEARCH REVIEW 2018

The epidemiology and control of FMD in goats
Geoffrey Fosgate, Department of Production Animal Studies
What would be the consequence of a foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreak occurring in the free zone of South Africa, say every 5 to 10 years? Should the current dogma concerning the risk factors associated with FMD occurrence and spread within South Africa be challenged?
and the African buffalo, play in the epidemiology of FMD at the wildlife interface has largely been neglected. Goats, for example, are not included in prophylactic FMD vaccination programmes.
Professor Geoffrey Fosgate in
the Department of Production Animal Studies, in collaboration
with postgraduate students and researchers at the Transboundary Animal Diseases of the Onderstepoort Veterinary Research campus, has been studying the epidemiology of FMD at the wildlife interface for the past decade. In 2018, two articles were published
in Preventive Veterinary Medicine, and the team completed the first-ever experimental infection study in goats to determine the vaccine dose to protect this livestock from a South African-origin FMDV.
The experimental study also included new collaborations with Dr Tanja Wolf, a postdoctoral researcher at the Mammal Research Institute, who studied the behavioural and stress responses in research animals, in addition to Dr Didi Claassen
and Dr Lieza Odendaal in the Department of Paraclinical Studies who are investigating pathogenesis and tissue tropism of FMDV using immunohistochemistry. The collected data are expected to yield new insights into the epidemiology and control of FMD in goats.
The 2011 FMD outbreak in KwaZulu-Natal province prevented South Africa from regaining FMD-
free status until 2014, and cost an estimated R4 billion due to export bans on livestock and wildlife products. In 2018, an outbreak in the Limpopo province threatened to cross over
into the free zone of KwaZulu-Natal,
only four years since the FMD-free status was regained. The prevailing belief is that these FMD outbreaks are primarily caused by direct contact between wildlife and cattle.
FMD is a highly contagious transboundary viral disease that poses a risk at the wildlife interfaces of southern Africa. In South Africa, three wildlife parks are classified as FMD- infected zones due to the presence
of the African buffalo (Syncerus caffer), which are a wildlife reservoir host:
the Kruger National Park, and two parks in the KwaZulu-Natal province
– the Ndumo Nature Reserve and the Tembe Elephant Park.
FMD is caused by infection with the FMD virus (FMDV), a small, positive- sense RNA virus in the genus Aphthovirus that derives its name from Greek aphtha meaning vesicle. The disease affects domestic and wild cloven-hoofed species causing fever, loss of appetite and lameness, in addition to vesicular lesions primarily in the mouth and on the hoofs. Control measures include restricting animal movement and vaccination.
To date, the role that susceptible animal species, other than cattle
82