{"id":27020,"date":"2026-02-26T11:02:26","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T09:02:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers-qa\/channelafrica\/news\/sa-president-describes-foot-and-mouth-disease-as-most-damaging-crisis\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:34:59","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:34:59","slug":"sa-president-describes-foot-and-mouth-disease-as-most-damaging-crisis","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sa-president-describes-foot-and-mouth-disease-as-most-damaging-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"SA President describes Foot-and-Mouth Disease as most damaging crisis\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">South African (SA) President Cyril Ramaphosa says the outbreak of Foot-and-Mouth Disease has wreaked havoc across SA&#8217;s agricultural sector.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">He described it as one of the most damaging crises the country&#8217;s cattle industry has ever faced.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">His remarks align with recent national reports confirming that the disease has spread throughout all nine provinces, prompting government to classify it as a national disaster due to its severe economic and food security impacts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">Ramaphosa delivered a keynote address at the Annual Official Opening of the National House of Traditional and Khoi\u2011San Leaders in Parliament, Cape Town, Western Cape Province.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">He reiterated government&#8217;s commitment to restoring stability in the livestock sector, announcing a mass vaccination campaign, targeting the country&#8217;s entire herd of 14 million cattle.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">According to the President, this vaccination rollout will include communal and small-scale farmers, ensuring that disease control measures reach all affected farming communities.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">The national plan requires an estimated 28 million vaccine doses and will be centrally coordinated to guarantee the correct strain-specific formulation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p class=\"x_MsoNormal\">&#8211;SABC&#8211;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":13104,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-27020","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":null,"news_description":"Ramaphosa says the outbreak of Foot-and-Mouth Disease has wreaked havoc","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/27020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/27020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27303,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/27020\/revisions\/27303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=27020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}