Page 118 - VHSA - Onderstepoort 100 Years - Part 3

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ERSTEPOORT 100
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In order to investigate the situation thoroughly, P.J. du Toit was sent from Onderstepoort to Nuanetsi to investigate the problem and he wrote two interesting papers on his findings, among which was that the disease
appeared to spread slowly in comparison
with European experience. Only many years
later was it realized that the Great Rinder-
pest Pandemic, which swept through
eastern and southern Africa during the last
decade of the 19th Century decimating
cattle and wildlife populations, had reduced
buffalo populations – which maintain the
three African serotypes (SAT 1, 2 & 3) of
FMD virus – as well as cattle to levels below
that where buffalo-cattle contact rates were
adequate to result in transmission of FMD
to domestic livestock. By the 1930s these
populations had recovered enabling FMD to
once more become evident in cattle (buffalo
rarely suffer clinical signs of infection). The
early reports and descriptions of FMD in
South Africa (e.g. by Hutcheon in 1882)
were confounded by the lack of appreciation of the role of wildlife and are therefore of limited interest today.
Serology conducted at the Pirbright Laboratory of the Institute for Animal Health (UK) on sera collected from buffalo rescued from islands created by the rising waters of the recently completed Kariba Dam in the early 1960s (Operation Noah), showed high sero-prevalence rates to SAT-type viruses. This was the first indication of the importance of African buffalo in the maintenance and spread of SAT-types of FMD viruses in southern Africa. Condy, Hedger and their colleagues,
working mostly in Zimbabwe, Botswana and the UK, did most of the early epidemiological work on FMD in the southern African context. South Africa contributed relatively little to this
work until the 1980s because prior to that we did not possess a suitable laboratory; before 1984 South Africa depended greatly on diagnostic services provided by Pirbright as well as vaccine imported from Europe.
This situation in South Africa began to change in the late 1960s, principally as a result of the strategic decision taken at Cabinet-level by the Government of the day on the necessity for South Africa acquiring a laboratory with adequate bio-safety levels to handle FMD and other dangerous animal pathogens and to ensure self-sufficiency as far as vaccine was concerned. This decision was apparently made at least partly be- cause the Government could not be certain of continued future access to international assistance and vaccine necessary for effective FMD control resulting as a consequence of
the growing international opposition to Government policies. However, the biosafety level 3 facility, built on Kaalplaas adjoining the Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute (OVI), was only completed in 1980 at a cost of approximately R 12 million and inaugurated on 18 January 1980 by the then minister of Agriculture, Hendrik Schoeman. Due to design and other problems, the laboratory did not actually begin to handle live FMD virus until 1984. Successfully overcoming the technical and financial difficulties associated with the commissioning phase of the laboratory owed much to the first head of the
Official opening of the FMD laboratory in 1980 with A. Pini (left), first Head of the FMD laboratory, with the Minister of Agriculture, H. Schoeman (second from left) and K.E.Weiss (right)
PART 3
History of Individual Disciplines
1908-2008
Years