Foot and mouth disease has swept through Lesotho and South Africa in the worst outbreak either country has recorded in a generation. From the cattle posts of Butha-Buthe to the feedlots of KwaZulu-Natal, the disease is reshaping what farmers earn, what consumers pay, and what arrives on the family table.
On 18 February 2026, veterinary officials at a cattle post in Mahlasela, Motebong, in Butha-Buthe district, tested 17 head of cattle showing signs of illness. Six tested positive for foot and mouth disease (FMD). Within days, samples had been dispatched to the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) reference laboratory in Botswana for virus typing. Within a week, the WOAH formally suspended Lesotho’s status as an FMD-free country where vaccination is not practised, a designation that underpins the kingdom’s ability to trade livestock and animal products internationally.
The outbreak was not isolated. It emerged against the backdrop of South Africa’s most severe FMD crisis in recent memory, a crisis that President Cyril Ramaphosa had already declared a national disaster earlier that month. Lesotho, surrounded entirely by South Africa, shares hundreds of kilometres...
