EMERGENCY measures are being taken at the island’s airports and ports in order to ensure foot and mouth disease (FMD) is not brought to the island by British visitors, after an outbreak in the UK over the weekend
The Minister of Agriculture, Natural Resources and the Environment said that since Saturday, the Republic of Cyprus has been taking specific measures and assured that there was nothing to panic about.
He said that according to an EU plan, the Republic had to take certain measures. These include visitors arriving on the island passing over a special decontamination mat.
“All checks are being made on people arriving in Cyprus, as well as on animal products,” Photis Photiou said.
“We have banned all imports of live animals from the UK and will be thoroughly checking all meat and animal products arriving in the next few days,” he added.
“We must not panic and will only worry if and when FMD cases start showing up in other EU countries. We will be monitoring the situation closely and will keep the public informed.”
Yesterday, the Assistant Director of the Veterinary Services, Dr Charalambos Kakoyiannis, said that the measures would continue until the danger had passed.
He also urged the public not to worry, saying the measures being taken were to stop the possible transmission of the illness to animals on the island, which would lead to severe economic problems for farmers.
“There is no danger to human health,” he stated, adding that problems would only arise if there was contact with an infected animal. “Humans are very rarely affected by FMD and even if they are, the symptoms are very light and do not require much treatment.”
He added that cattle, bovine and pigs face a transmission rate of 100 per cent, but that the rate of mortality stands at five to ten per cent.
The first outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Britain since 2001 has prompted a number of governments across the globe to put measures in place to prevent the spread of the disease.
The European Commission yesterday said that Britain has responded fully and promptly and there was no need for EU countries to introduce their own trade restrictions.
The Commission also confirmed an indefinite EU ban on exports of all live animals from Britain, as well as meat and dairy products from the area of England that has been affected by the disease outbreak.
EU Health Commissioner Marcos Kyprianou stated that he was satisfied with the measures taken by the British authorities. “We do not believe that there is a danger to Cyprus or to the EU in general,” he told CyBC radio.
Foot and mouth was confirmed in cattle on a farm near Pirbright in south east England at the weekend. About 120 cattle from three herds on three separately owned holdings on the Normandy farm site, between Guildford and Aldershot, were killed as a precaution following confirmation of the outbreak.
Merial Animal Health Limited, jointly owned by US drugmaker Merck & Co. Inc and France’s Sanofi-Aventis SA, was sealed off and under inspection along with a nearby government-funded laboratory.
The laboratories are around five miles from where a herd of cattle was infected on Friday by an uncommon strain of foot and mouth disease, the same strain stored and used by the two labs for research and to develop vaccines.
The 2001 foot and mouth epidemic cost Britain’s economy an estimated eight billion pounds and dealt a huge blow to rural communities.
Between 6.5 and 10 million animals were slaughtered and torched on huge pyres.
Livestock in Cyprus do not suffer from diseases such as BSE or FMD, which is why the authorities are so strict about our imports and exports. If such a disease were to infect Cyprus animals, it would probably wipe out livestock to a great degree.
What exactly is FMD?
Foot and mouth disease is a highly contagious and sometimes fatal viral disease of cattle and pigs. It can also infect deer, goats, sheep, and other bovids with cloven hooves, as well as elephants, rats, and hedgehogs. Humans are affected only very rarely.
The cause was first shown to be viral in 1897 by Friedrich Loeffler.
It occurs throughout much of the world, and while some countries have been free of it for some time, its wide host range and rapid spread represent cause for international concern.
Humans can be infected with the disease through contact with infected animals, but this is extremely rare. Because the virus that causes FMD is sensitive to stomach acid, it cannot spread to humans via consumption of infected meat. In the UK, the last confirmed human case occurred in 1967, and only a few other cases have been recorded in countries of continental Europe, Africa, and South America. Symptoms of FMD in humans include malaise, fever, vomiting, red ulcerative lesions of the oral tissues, and small blisters of the skin.
Because FMD rarely infects humans but spreads rapidly among animals, it is a much greater threat to the agriculture industry than to human health.
