why the national animal health forum
matters to
buffalo
Published with permission from Dr. Stuart McKernan.
Taken from http://championwildlife.com/2017/09/18/why-the-national-animal-
health-forum-matters-to-buffalo/
Across their native African distribution range, buffalo
are integral to natural ecosystems, but are also
hosts to two diseases that limit their existence in
proximity of the food-producing animals necessary
for humanity.
Their capacity to carry and transmit subclinical
foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) and the
haemoprotozoan Theileria parva, the cause of
Corridor disease (CD), has placed them in the cross-
hairs of government agricultural departments.
FMDV is the big one. International trade depends
upon a status imparted by the World Organisation
for Animal Health (OIE) of “FMD free without
vaccination”. South Africa achieves this through
2017
September
19