HEIDELBERG, South Africa (AP) — South Africa embarked on a mass vaccination of cattle on Friday to stem an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease that threatens to disrupt meat, dairy and livestock supplies and exports.
The outbreak, which started intensifying late last year and has rapidly spread across the country's livestock industry, has already affected more than 297,000 cattle and resulted in over 120 000 animals being culled as farmers try to contain the spread.
The outbreak threatens mass shortages of meat, job losses and millions of dollars in lost revenue as countries including China and Zambia ban South African meat exports.
Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen on Friday launched the country’s rollout of vaccines, with a million vaccines delivered from Turkey in recent days.
More vaccines are expected to arrive this weekend, but there are concerns that the supply is way less than the required doses to vaccinate almost 12 million cattle.
“The one strategy that we have ultimately adopted is the mass vaccination strategy. So we can get ahead of the foot-and-mouth disease in South Africa and ensure that we can prevent outbreaks from happening rather than reacting to outbreaks,” said Steenhuisen.
The coastal province of KwaZulu-Natal has been identified as the hot spot for the outbreak, with over 17,000 farms affected. It has been officially declared as a national disaster, a legal framework that will allow the government to allocate emergency funds that will mostly be used to procure vaccines.
The national treasury has allocated about $25 million to fight the outbreak, which will mostly be used to buy vaccines.
Farmers and meat producers are already struggling, having had to quarantine affected animals and stop all trade and exports while dealing with a short supply of vaccines in the country.
Dr. Dirk Verwoerd, a veterinarian at South Africa's largest meat producer, Karan Beef, said the damage caused by the outbreak is impacting all parts of the meat and dairy industry.
“You have massive damage upstream and downstream,” he told The Associated Press. "You cannot purchase cows, so your primary producers now sit with them. They can’t sell, and we can't purchase. You cannot slaughter, so the consumer pays the price.”
Karan Beef's feedlot in Heidelberg is the biggest in the country, covering 2,300 hectares (5,680 acres) which can accommodate more than 140,000 cattle.
“It’s an epidemic that is out of control, completely out of control,” said Verwoerd. "Rampant infections happening in all the provinces, daily, there are just more and more reports. The first target is to get stability. And that’s why we need to vaccinate the national herd, the national population.”
Cattle in the pen, at Karan Beef the country's largest red meat producers, in Heidelberg, south of Johannesburg, South Africa, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)
Cattle in the pen, at Karan Beef the country's largest red meat producers, in Heidelberg, south of Johannesburg, South Africa, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)
Cattle in the pen, at Karan Beef the country's largest red meat producers, in Heidelberg, south of Johannesburg, South Africa, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. stocks are sinking Friday as Wall Street gets back to hunting companies that could become losers because of the artificial-intelligence revolution. A surprisingly discouraging update on inflation is also hurting the market, while oil prices climb with worries about tensions between the United States and Iran.
The S&P 500 fell 0.8% and is staggering toward the finish of what would be just its second losing month in the last 10. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 630 points, or 1.3%, as of 1:58 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 1.3% lower.
The losses came as investors returned to knocking down software companies and others whose businesses they suspect could get supplanted by AI-powered competitors.
Block, the company behind Cash App, Square and other businesses, gave a potential signal of what AI could do after CEO Jack Dorsey said he was cutting its workforce by nearly half. That’s even though he said 2025 was a strong year for the company, which is sending more cash to shareholders through stock buybacks.
“Intelligence tools have changed what it means to build and run a company,” Dorsey said in a letter to investors while announcing Block’s latest profit results. “We’re already seeing it internally. A significantly smaller team, using the tools we’re building, can do more and do it better.”
The co-founder of Twitter also said, “I don’t think we’re early to this realization. I think most companies are late. Within the next year, I believe the majority of companies will reach the same conclusion and make similar structural changes.”
Block is cutting more than 4,000 jobs from its workforce of over 10,000. Its stock jumped 14.1%.
Capable AI tools that can replace humans could also replace entire companies, or at least eat away at their profit margins. Fears about AI disruption have been causing sudden and swift sell-offs for stocks seen as potentially under threat, rolling through industries as different as trucking logistics and legal services.
Salesforce, whose platform helps customers manage their relationships with clients, fell 2.2%. It gave back more than half of its 4% gain from the day before after reporting a better profit than analysts expected.
A widely followed ETF tracking the software industry, meanwhile, sank 1.8% to bring its loss for the year so far to 23.3%.
The pain has also filtered out to private-equity companies that have lent money to software companies, which need to withstand the AI threat to keep repaying their debt. Blue Apollo Global Management dropped 8.5%, and Ares Management sank 6.2% for two of the biggest losses in the S&P 500.
Even the companies currently seeing their revenue and profit soar because of AI-related demand are weakening. Nvidia fell 3.5% and was the heaviest weight on the U.S. stock market, a day after dropping to its worst loss since last spring. That's even though it reported a better profit than analysts expected and forecast more in revenue for the current quarter.
Rival chip companies also fell. Worries are hurting such companies not only about whether their stock prices rose too high in recent years but also whether the huge spending driving their growth can continue. Can big spenders like Amazon and Alphabet make back all their billions of dollars in AI investments through higher productivity and profits in the future?
On the winning side of Wall Street was Netflix, which climbed 12.5% after walking away from its bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery’s studio and streaming business. That put Skydance-owned Paramount in a position to take over its Hollywood rival.
Paramount Skydance shares jumped 22.9%, while Warner Bros. Discovery fell 1.9%.
Some of the strongest action in financial markets was for oil, where the price for a barrel of benchmark U.S. crude oil rose 2.5% to $66.82. It's the latest swing in a market unsettled by tensions between the United States and Iran over Iran’s nuclear program.
The U.S. military has already gathered a massive fleet of aircraft and warships in the Middle East, and a conflict could disrupt the global flow of oil and drive prices higher.
Brent crude, the international standard, rose 2.6% to $72.68 per barrel.
Also hurting the broad market was a report showing that inflation at the U.S. wholesale level was at 2.9% last month, much higher than the 1.6% that economists expected.
The number was so much worse than expected that it could help persuade the Federal Reserve to hold off longer on its cuts to interest rates. Lower rates would give the economy and prices for investments a boost, but they risk worsening inflation at the same time.
In the bond market, the yield on the 10-year Treasury was at 3.96%. It briefly swiveled higher following the inflation report, but it’s down from its 4.02% level late Thursday. Treasury yields often fall when nervousness is high and investors are moving into investments that are considered safer.
ln stock markets abroad, indexes were mixed in Europe and Asia. South Korea’s Kospi fell 1% from its latest record, and the United Kingdom's FTSE 100 rose 0.6% in two of the world’s larger moves.
AP Business Writers Matt Ott and Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
Trader John Romolo works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, Feb. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Specialist Thomas McArdle works at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, Feb. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
Trader Timothy Nick, left, and Robert Charmak work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Friday, Feb. 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
People walk near an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
A person stands as a vehicle passes by in front of an electronic stock board showing Japan's Nikkei index at a securities firm Thursday, Feb. 26, 2026, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
A currency trader watches a monitor near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top center, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top left, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters, in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A currency trader passes by a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Currency traders watch monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top center, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top center left, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters, in Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
