For the first time in nearly 40 years, an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) was confirmed in a herd of water buffalo on the outskirts of Berlin. FMD causes fever and mouth blisters in cloven-hoofed ruminants such as cattle, swine, sheep and goats.
German authorities are taking measures to contain the highly infectious disease, which poses no danger to humans though they can transmit it, Reuters reports. Affected animals have already been euthanized, according to local authorities.
The country has set up an exclusion zone of 3 kilometers and a monitoring zone of 10 kilometers in which no more products or animals may be taken out of these zones.
Local authorities are investigating how the animals became infected, but there are no plans for measures at the federal or international level, the article said.
The last cases in Germany occurred in 1988, according to the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut (FLI) animal health research institute. The last outbreak in Europe was reported in Bulgaria in 2011. Prior to that, the United Kingdom was hit by a major FMD outbreak in 2001, followed by France, Ireland and the Netherlands.
The FMD virus remains endemic in Turkey, the Middle East and Africa, many Asian countries and parts of South America, the FLI said.
“Many zoo and wild animals can also contract FMD,” FLI wrote. “There are very strict international rules for the prevention and control of FMD. There is no treatment for infected animals. If even one animal on a farm is infected, all ungulates must be killed and destroyed.”
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