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Speaker 1: The ongoing foot and mouth disease crisis in South Africa

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Speaker 1: is causing significant economic damage estimated to be billions of rands,

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Speaker 1: export bands, reduced productivity, and the high cost of the

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Speaker 1: current vaccine rollout is taking its toll, with the disease

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Speaker 1: now present in seven of the nine provinces, and it's

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Speaker 1: not only cattle, the outbreak is also affecting sheep, goats

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Speaker 1: and pigs. To find out what this means for you

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Speaker 1: and I, I'm joined now by Dear Vault Oil Afeer,

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Speaker 1: the CEO of the Red Meat Industry Service. Dear Vault,

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Speaker 1: good afternoon, Thank you for joining us this afternoon.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you, thank you for having me.

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Speaker 1: You know, we saw the prices of red meat skyrocket

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Speaker 1: towards the beginning of this year. Now this can't be

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Speaker 1: helping things one bit.

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Speaker 2: No, it doesn't. But I mean the fact is the

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Speaker 2: biggest reason for that is the quarantine in the way

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Speaker 2: that we deal with foot in mouth disease, the outbreak itself,

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Speaker 2: and obviously ensuring that the disease doesn't spread. So hopefully

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Speaker 2: it's temporary, but the fact is it do happen.

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Speaker 1: DEVLD. What are some of the sort of far reaching

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Speaker 1: consequences of the outbreak that people, ordinary people like myself

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Speaker 1: may not realize.

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Speaker 2: I guess I think it's very important to understand. Once

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Speaker 2: there's an outbreak, and as I indicated, there's a quarantine

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Speaker 2: period which in which animals need to stand still, they

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Speaker 2: cannot move, they need to look need to be looked at.

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Speaker 2: So despite the let's leave the sick animals aside, the

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Speaker 2: fact is these animals do get sick, and sometimes the

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Speaker 2: hooves come off and they do get really sickly. Saw

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Speaker 2: with the last last outbreak that there's an emotional damage

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Speaker 2: on the people that actually deal with the animals. But secondly,

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Speaker 2: the economic value and all the economic losses that we've inculd.

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Speaker 2: The fact is we cannot sell cattle. They stand still,

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Speaker 2: we cannot slaughter the animals, and at the end of

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Speaker 2: the day, not slaughtering means the retail prices go up,

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Speaker 2: there's not an income for farm and at the end,

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Speaker 2: it actually it disrupts the entire value chain. So it's

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Speaker 2: actually a message disruption that happens, and it's a postponed

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Speaker 2: income that actually also only come at the end once

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Speaker 2: the quarantine has been listed. But its damaging, it's severe.

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Speaker 1: New twenty four has published a report today just on

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Speaker 1: some of the different impacts that the disease has had.

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Speaker 1: And one of the things I mentioned is, as you said,

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Speaker 1: somebody that trades in cattle, somebody whose business it is

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Speaker 1: to buy and sell cattle, is unable to operate at

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Speaker 1: all at the moment.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So it's not everywhere, and it's not everybody.

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Speaker 2: I think that's important to understand. But where you affect it,

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Speaker 2: it definitely has an impact. And I mean ten cattle

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Speaker 2: for one person in a thousand cattle for another person,

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Speaker 2: it's exactly the same. I don't think there's a differentiation

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Speaker 2: between small and big companies or businesses, or even if

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Speaker 2: I've got one animal or two animals who have solved

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Speaker 2: in to be able to pay school fees or be

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Speaker 2: able to pay whatever I need my monthly expenses. It

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Speaker 2: actually hits everybody. And we must understand that Africa and

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Speaker 2: South Africa is not excluded from it is a country

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Speaker 2: where we deal in livestock. I mean, Africa is a

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Speaker 2: livestock continent, so we're not going to get away with

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Speaker 2: this easily. We deal in livestock.

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Speaker 1: Develed. Some of the things they list under the economic

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Speaker 1: impact in this report on News twenty four as a

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Speaker 1: drop in milk yield, severe weight glass, reduced fertility, and

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Speaker 1: potential permanent udder damage. How many animals will suffer from

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Speaker 1: some of those things such as reduce fertility and potential

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Speaker 1: permanent adder damage.

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Speaker 2: So that's definitely specifically in the dairy industry. The dairy

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Speaker 2: industry I think hit the hardest with this outbreak. In

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Speaker 2: the past, we could save or protect our dairy industry,

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Speaker 2: but in the current outbreak, we've seen that it has

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Speaker 2: been running felt fire and we couldn't stop these spreads

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Speaker 2: to ju dearies as well. So if you talk numbers,

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Speaker 2: I think it would be a remiss for me to

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Speaker 2: name any to give you a figure. I think it's

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Speaker 2: definitely there aren't any deiries other than a few within

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Speaker 2: the Western Cape and maybe one or two in the

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Speaker 2: drier areas like the Northern Cape, but there are not affected.

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Speaker 2: I think we've seen the spread all over South Africa.

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Speaker 2: You also sent and indicated there's only two provinces that

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Speaker 2: are actually not that severely infected, but they are affected.

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Speaker 1: Do you think that government intervention happened quickly enough? Sorry,

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Speaker 1: dropping out my wheels could this outbreak have been managed

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Speaker 1: more efficiently?

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Speaker 2: I think, in my opinion, I think it's a collaboration

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Speaker 2: between industry and government, and I think both of us

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Speaker 2: if I say this made mistakes. There were definitely mistakes

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Speaker 2: made from the beginning from government, but there are also

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Speaker 2: many mistakes from industry side. I can only speak to

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Speaker 2: the industry and I can tell you that what we

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Speaker 2: do in the last stock industry per SAE is move cattle,

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Speaker 2: or move milk, or move product. So that's what we do.

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Speaker 2: But we have got to look differently at the way

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Speaker 2: that we deal with livestock and the risks involved, and

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Speaker 2: certainly there needs to be more collaboration, even more than

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Speaker 2: we already have at this stage, between industry and government.

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Speaker 2: We can point fingers anywhere and to everybody, but I

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Speaker 2: think at the end of the day, we need to

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Speaker 2: solve this problem first.

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Speaker 1: Now I've read today that the outbreak in case it

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Speaker 1: in might be worse than initially feared. Do you know

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Speaker 1: why that would be.

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Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of farmers, state veterinarians, let's

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Speaker 2: call it the role players over all, who did not

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Speaker 2: report the outbreaks when and where it happens and understandably, So,

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Speaker 2: I mean, I'm not criticizing them, but at the end

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Speaker 2: of the day, it actually skewed the picture with regards

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Speaker 2: to where we have problems. Now, once we've got that scene,

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Speaker 2: these role players are coming forward and I'm saying role players,

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Speaker 2: because it's all over the spectrum, are coming forward and

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Speaker 2: saying that they have had outbreaks, that they've got sick animals,

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Speaker 2: and it's actually a worse picture. The picture is much

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Speaker 2: worse than what we thought.

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Speaker 1: DEVLTA mentioned in my introduction that the disease doesn't only

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Speaker 1: affect cattle, it also affects goats and pigs. How widespread

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Speaker 1: is the disease in those other animals, I.

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Speaker 2: Think the biggest one and the biggest effected of the

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Speaker 2: other two that you mentioned is actually the pig industry.

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Speaker 2: So what the scientists or the veterinarians tells us I'm

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Speaker 2: not a veterinarian that when and once this virus goes

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Speaker 2: into pigs, it's actually it increases the They call it

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Speaker 2: a plume. It's like an atomic bomb. Apparently, how it

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Speaker 2: looks in the airwaves. What happens when pigs excrete this virus.

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Speaker 2: So it's very, very bad when you talk sheep and goat,

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Speaker 2: we've seen a lot less of the virus in them,

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Speaker 2: and it's actually not that distinguishable. But at the end

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Speaker 2: of the day, we know that they also do get

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Speaker 2: the vacci of the virus, and they're also carriers. But

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Speaker 2: pigs severely affected. You know, the wealthare issues with regards

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Speaker 2: to the big industry is actually I think the biggest

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Speaker 2: warrior concern that we've got.

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Speaker 1: And when you talk about the animal welfare, I mean

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Speaker 1: part of this News twenty four report described one farmer

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Speaker 1: having to cull one hundred and fifty of his affected

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Speaker 1: animals and just saying that one of the hardest parts

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Speaker 1: was watching these animals suffer. What kind of sickness does

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Speaker 1: it cause to the animals?

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Speaker 2: Okay, so it doesn't necessarily always happen to all the animals,

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Speaker 2: but what can happen And I think what we saw

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Speaker 2: with the outbreak this time around was that some of

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Speaker 2: the animals got lame. The hoofs fell off, obviously, and

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Speaker 2: as I indicated, the dairy cattle has got a massive

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Speaker 2: problem with regards to the others, mustitis and so on.

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Speaker 2: So I think that's normally what happens. It gets so

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Speaker 2: bad that it's better to just put them down than

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Speaker 2: to see them suffer. And I think emotionally, that's one

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Speaker 2: of the biggest issues that we've seen on the farmers.

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Speaker 2: They are emotionally. If you remember me, you become a

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Speaker 2: farmer because you love animals, and it really hurts them.

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Speaker 1: Develt. Now that the vaccination roll out as well underway,

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Speaker 1: do you think we should be nearing the end of

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Speaker 1: the situation.

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Speaker 2: I would like to think that we're definitely on the

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Speaker 2: down hill, I think, but there's still a lot of

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Speaker 2: work to be done. I think we still need a

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Speaker 2: lot more vaccine. I know that between government and industry

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Speaker 2: of we are tirelessly working to get more vaccine into

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Speaker 2: the country. We still have something cups. We haven't sorted

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Speaker 2: out everything, but the fact of the matter is we

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Speaker 2: need more vaccine. We need to vaccinate this entire country later.

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Speaker 2: So I think we're on the downhill, as I indicated,

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Speaker 2: but they're a lot of work still to be done.

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Speaker 1: And I'll squeeze in one last question because it's come

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Speaker 1: from a listener for you, please de Vault. Listener wants

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Speaker 1: to know where the birds are spreading the virus.

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Speaker 2: We haven't seen that. I think the the amount of

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Speaker 2: let's call it a virus that needs to go and

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Speaker 2: they and themselves birds cannot carry the disease. If the

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Speaker 2: listener is referring to Manere may be stuck on the feed,

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Speaker 2: it could be, but it's highly highly unlikely. We're not

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Speaker 2: even looking at that as this stage.

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Speaker 1: Okay, thank you very much for your time this afternoon.

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Speaker 1: Devolt or if he has, the CEO of the red

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Speaker 1: Meat Industry service, I'm finding it a very sad story

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Speaker 1: that foot and mouth outbreak, and particularly distressed to hear

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Speaker 1: about how the animals are suffering