(Special for CAFS) Antimicrobial resistance limits Botswana’s access to lucrative beef markets: official

 GABORONE, April 29 -- Increasing cases of cross-border diseases in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region are jeopardizing Botswana's potential to access lucrative beef markets, an official said on Sunday.
   As a landlocked country, Botswana experiences outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) and bovine respiratory disease emanating from neighboring countries. Because of these constant outbreaks, falsified and substandard antimicrobial medicines are driving antimicrobial resistance in the country, Botswanan Minister of Agriculture Fidelis Molao told a local farmers' consultative forum in Francistown, Botswana's second-largest city.
   The minister said antimicrobial resistance is a phenomenon in which bacteria, viruses, fungi, and parasites no longer respond to antimicrobial drugs. It poses an existential threat to Botswana's strained health infrastructure and limited medical resources.
   Citing it as an example, Molao said Botswana's North-West District, or Ngamiland, has an estimated surplus of 200,000 high-quality cattle, but farmers cannot access lucrative beef markets because of frequent outbreaks of FMD.
   Botswana has been selling beef from Botswana's North-West District to the lucrative European market and receiving fair prices for its products and byproducts, said Molao.
   Molao remained optimistic that Botswana's partnership with the World Organization for Animal Health and the World Health Organization would result in Botswana detecting falsified and substandard antimicrobial medicines.