Farmers on high alert as another case of FMD emerges in Europe

FARMERS in Europe are on high alert as Foot and Mouth (FMD) has been found on a farm in Hungary, close to the border with Slovakia.

A number of countries across the world have already banned meat imports from the two affected nations in a bid to prevent the disease spreading.

Hungarian authorities confirmed their first case of FMD in over 50 years on the farm near the border with Slovakia that houses 1,400 head of cattle.

Hungary’s National Food Chain Safety Office (Nebih) confirmed the outbreak on March 7 on the farm in Kisbajcs.

Hungary’s chief veterinarian, Dr Szabolcs Pasztor, immediately ordered the closure of the farm and the initiation of an epidemiological investigation. A ban on the movement of all live cattle soon followed.

FMD is a highly contagious viral disease that mainly affects cloven-hoofed animals, such as cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, buffalo and wild ruminants.

Animals with the disease show symptoms including fever, loss of appetite, salivation and the appearance of blisters in the mouth and on the ends of the feet.

It is very rarely transmitted to humans, but due to its extremely high contagiousness and rapid spread in livestock, its appearance has serious economic consequences.

Infected animals cannot be treated, so if the disease is confirmed in even one animal on a farm, all cloven-hoofed animals must be eliminated.

All animals on the affected Hungarian farm were slaughtered and an investigation into the source of the disease is still ongoing.

This latest outbreak comes just two months after FMD was detected in a herd of water buffalo near Berlin in Germany, which cost up to €1 billion (US$1.09 billion) in lost export sales.

The UK was one of the first countries to implement a ban on all imports of live cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, deer, etc as well as imports of meat and dairy products from Hungary and Slovakia.

UK Chief Veterinary Officer, Dr Christine Middlemiss, said: “We remain in contact with our Hungarian counterparts to understand the latest situation following their confirmation of a single case of foot and mouth disease.

“I would urge livestock keepers to exercise the upmost vigilance for signs of disease, follow scrupulous biosecurity and report any suspicion of disease immediately to the Animal and Plant Health Agency.”

European authorities do not want a repeat of the 2001 FMD epidemic that saw millions of animals slaughtered across nations.

In the UK over six million animals were slaughtered at a cost of over €15 billion to the agricultural and tourism sectors.

The first case of FMD in the United States was discovered in 1870, and by 1929 American authorities had eradicated the disease. The US has remained free of FMD to this day.

However, the disease remains endemic in many other parts of the world, particularly in South America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.