THE Chairman of the European Livestock Association’s Animal Health and Welfare Committee has cast serious doubt over whether there was a foot and mouth outbreak in Cyprus.
“As a veterinarian who spent most of his life on control and eradication of FMD, I have serious concerns about the EU guided measures applied in Cyprus,” Dr Paul Sutmoller wrote in response to MEP Marios Matsakis’ letter to the European Commission, in which the latter clearly stated his doubts over whether there really was a foot and mouth outbreak in Cyprus.
At the same time however, the Veterinary Services yesterday announced they had spotted 44 new cases of foot and mouth disease in an Aradippou farm. Farm owner Lefteris Eleftheriou has said he would not allow the culling of his animals unless he was compensated first.
After closely observing the situation in Cyprus from the first day the disease was spotted, Sutmoller said he had no reason to doubt the official and EU declaration of the occurrence of FMD in Cyprus.
However, he believed there was a possibility the disease could have been brought under control with vaccinations instead.
He wrote the following posting for ProMed: “With regard to the stamping-out method used to try to control and eradicate the present FMD type O outbreak in Cyprus, one wonders if immediate vaccination of the susceptible livestock population on the island has been considered to bring the outbreak under control quickly. There are no scientific reasons to believe that under the prevailing conditions of Cyprus stamping-out may be more effective than vaccination in controlling the disease.”
The FMD expert then went on to cast serious doubt over whether there was an FMD outbreak in Cyprus. “If there had in fact been foot and mouth disease in Cyprus, the disease would most likely have spread widely by the time of detection and notification.”
He added, “Vaccination of the livestock population would have been the only logical way to control and eradicate the disease.
“The senseless slaughter of so-called ‘infected’ flocks of sheep and goats would have been prevented.”
In the days and weeks that followed the first mention of the disease, Sutmoller became convinced that the diagnosis of FMD in Cyprus was not substantiated.
“From the reports, I concluded that there was never any FMD on the island, since no virus was detected in a large number of samples,” he claimed, before fuelling rumours that the disease had come from the occupied north: “Animal movements of vaccinated animals from the northern part of the island under Turkish administration could very well explain the antibodies that were found.”
Still, he added, the EU Commission continued to recommend the continuation of “the senseless culling”.
“My long experience as Chief of Laboratories of the Panamerican Foot and Mouth Disease Centre has taught me that one must be extremely careful when making a positive diagnosis in an FMD-free country,” Sutmoller explained. “Virus detection is a must, because a misdiagnosis creates a disaster in terms of human and animal suffering, with staggering economic consequences.”
He concluded in his letter to Matsakis, “I hope that the scientific arguments of this letter will assist you in convincing the EU and veterinary authorities that future decisions on disease control and eradication must be based on sound diagnosis, epidemiological facts and local conditions.”
The head of the Veterinary Services, Charalambos Kakoyiannis, yesterday shifted the blame onto the EU after calling for an urgent press conference.
Offering a round-up of all the actions taken since the first case was spotted back in early November, Kakoyiannis said all the measures taken by the government were made in co-operation with the EU.
“Never did we say there was a live virus of foot and mouth in Cyprus,” he stated. “What we said was that there were cases that came either from older animals or the importation of animals to Cyprus from abroad.”
He added, however, that 50 animals on the Aradippou farm would have to be slaughtered “for psychological reasons”, because only by culling all the positive-testing animals “we will be able to rid Cyprus of this disease”.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Yiannakis Thoma of AKEL, called the entire foot and mouth affair a “fiasco”.
“This was not an easy thing to say, if there was no basis on which its substantiation could be supported,” said Thoma after his Committee had discussed the issue yesterday. “And the basis was the opinion of experts from seven countries who gathered in Brussels and who clearly stated in a written announcement that in Cyprus there was no active or live virus, which is transmitted.”
He added that the European Union had no choice but to order the implementation of measures as the Agriculture Ministry had announced that there was an FMD epidemic spreading through the island.
“What is clear today is that there was never a foot and mouth epidemic,” the AKEL deputy stated, adding: “This means that we wrongly informed the European Commission that there was an epidemic and we provoked all these measures that today Cypriot farmers and the Cyprus economy are being asked to pay.”
What we have today, he continued, are a few hundred animals that for some reason – possibly due to vaccinations they received – are showing positive indications of the disease.
“The choice to cull animals in the beginning could not have been avoided; but I believe that slaughtering the two farms of the Kyriacou brothers took place at such a point in time when it was clear that there was no epidemic,” said Thoma.
