The proposal aims to increase South Africa’s vaccine supply, but implementation will require licensing, regulatory approval and suitable manufacturing capacity.
A proposal announced by Agriculture Minister Willie Aucamp will allow qualifying private companies to use the Agricultural Research Council’s (ARC) intellectual property to help manufacture foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) vaccines at large scale.
The Department of Agriculture said the proposal was unanimously approved by the ARC and its board on Monday, 21 September 2026.
The department said the ARC currently could not manufacture its FMD vaccine at scale because of production constraints.
“Allowing local and/or international companies to manufacture the ARC vaccine under conditional intellectual-property licensing agreements with the ARC will therefore help the ARC overcome the current manufacturing constraints,” the department said.
Aucamp said partnering with the private sector marked a decisive step towards protecting South Africa’s livestock sector, strengthening biosecurity and safeguarding food supplies.
“I have listened to the concerns of farmers and other stakeholders in the sector, and I appreciate that they want swift action to deal with this foot-and-mouth disease outbreak,” he said.
“It is against this background that we are now, for the first time, going to allow the private sector to use ARC intellectual property to increase the availability of the ARC vaccine.”
The ARC remains committed to rebuilding and expanding its own production capacity, the department said.
Any income generated through licensing agreements will be ring-fenced and used to expand the ARC’s FMD vaccine manufacturing capacity.
Aucamp said implementation would not happen overnight but described the decision as an important step towards addressing the outbreak.
“All parties involved have committed to doing whatever they can to ensure that this decision is implemented without delay,” he said.
At Aucamp’s request, the ARC will also submit representative FMD field virus isolates from South Africa to the Pirbright Institute in the United Kingdom in October for a second round of vaccine-matching assessments.
The assessment will provide an additional scientific evaluation of the suitability of available local and imported vaccines against FMD viruses currently circulating in South Africa.
The department said it would continue working with commodity organisations, provincial veterinary services, the ARC, organised agriculture and other stakeholders to strengthen the country’s FMD control programme.
Bennie van Zyl, general manager of TLU SA, welcomed the announcement.
“This could help increase production and make more vaccines available, while all the necessary safety, quality and regulatory requirements will still apply,” he said.
Van Zyl said veterinarians and academics believed the ARC vaccine was well suited to strains currently found in South Africa and might provide longer protection than some imported vaccines. We believe this is an important step towards better controlling foot and mouth disease and protecting South Africa's livestock industry.”
Dewald Olivier, CEO of Red Meat Industry Services, said the organisation welcomed the decision to support vaccine manufacturing in South Africa.
“We know that this is a long-term solution to what we currently face. Our biggest current problem is surveillance laboratory capacity. However, we're happy that the private sector can now vaccine or manufacture vaccines in conjunction with ARC, but that's a long-term objective, not necessarily looking at the short term” he said.
Olivier said the ARC should also focus on laboratory capacity, surveillance and testing the efficacy of current vaccines in South Africa.
Dawie Maree, FNB’s head of agriculture information and marketing, described the decision as important and long overdue.
He said about 21 million doses of FMD vaccine had been imported and that the ARC could produce only about 20,000 doses a month, compared with an estimated requirement of about 2.5 million doses.
Maree concluded that it is important that they involve private companies, which can work with government institutions to assist in combating the disease through locally manufactured vaccines. “It will be a great PPP (public private partnership).”
yogashen.pillay@nationalmg.co.za