Foot and mouth disease shows up in Germany for first time in 40 years

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) or hoof-and-mouth disease (HMD) is an infectious and sometimes fatal viral disease that primarily affects even-toed ungulates, including domestic and wild bovids. The virus causes a high fever lasting two to six days, followed by blisters inside the mouth and near the hoof that may rupture and cause lameness.

German authorities confirmed the country’s first outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in nearly 40 years on Friday in a herd of water buffalo on the outskirts of Berlin. Germany was thought to be free of FMD

^{FMD has very severe implications for animal farming since it is highly infectious and can be spread by infected animals comparatively easily through contact with contaminated farming equipment}, vehicles, clothing, and feed and by domestic and wild predators. Its containment demands considerable efforts in vaccination, strict monitoring, trade restrictions, quarantines, and the culling of both infected and healthy (uninfected) animals.

Susceptible animals include cattle, water buffalo, sheep, goats, pigs, antelope, deer, and bison.

Foot-and-mouth disease causes fever and mouth blisters in cloven-hoofed ruminants such as cattle, swine, sheep, and goats.

Measures to contain the highly infectious disease, which poses no danger to humans though they can transmit it, are being implemented, and the affected animals have already been euthanized, said local authorities.

A federal agricultural ministry spokesperson at a government news conference said an exclusion zone of 3 kilometers and a monitoring zone of 10 kilometers have been set up, and no more products or animals may be taken out of these zones.

Local authorities are investigating how the animals became infected, but the spokesperson added that no measures are planned at the federal or international levels.

Germany and the European Union are officially recognized as being free of the disease. According to the FLI Animal Health Research Institute, the last cases in Germany occurred in 1988.

The FLI said the disease occurs regularly in the Middle East and Africa, in many Asian countries, and in parts of South America. Illegally imported animal products from these countries threaten European agriculture, it said.

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