Foot-and-mouth disease outbreak leads to animal culls

Authorities in several countries of Central Europe are working to contain an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease among cattle populations that has caused widespread border closures and required the killing of thousands of animals.

- ASSOCIATED PRESS

The outbreak was first detected on a cattle farm in northwestern Hungary in early March, and animals on three farms in neighbouring Slovakia tested positive for the highly transmissible virus two weeks later.

Since then, animals from an additional three farms in Hungary and another three in Slovakia have tested positive for the virus, the first outbreak of the disease in either country in more than half a century.

“Everything is completely upside down” in the area as farmers fear for their own herds and transportation is disrupted by border closures, said Sandor Szoboszlai, a local entrepreneur and hunter in the Hungarian town of Levél where nearly 3,000 cattle had to be culled after the disease was discovered ona farm,