A case of foot-and-mouth disease has been detected on a cattle farm with 1400 heads on the border of Hungary and Slovakia. This is the first outbreak of the disease in the country in the last 50 years. This is reported by Politico, as conveyed by UNN.
Details
It is noted that the National Food Chain Safety Office (Nébih) was informed about the symptoms of foot-and-mouth disease in early March. Strict measures were immediately taken, including a ban on breeding live animals and their meat.
"The culling of the herd and the identification of the source of infection are ongoing," the agency added.
Context
It is noted that Germany is recovering from an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in January. At that time, costly emergency measures were taken, costing up to 1 billion euros in lost exports and leading to a ban on German-origin meat in the United Kingdom, Mexico, and South Korea.
The outbreak was managed, but European authorities fear a repeat of the 2001 epidemic in the United Kingdom, which cost the agricultural and tourism sectors over 15 billion euros and led to the culling of over 6 million animals.
Reference
Foot-and-mouth disease is a severe illness that is highly contagious for cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats. It rarely leads to the death of livestock but causes fever, loss of appetite, blisters on hooves and in the mouth, resulting in the culling of the entire herd.