FOOT & MOUTH DISEASE
What is it?
Foot and Mouth disease NFMDO is caused by a picornavirus, of which there are seven main types, each producing the same symptoms and distinguishable only in the laboratory. According to the Department of Food and Rural Affairs NDefraO, ‘FMD is probably more infectious than any other disease affecting man or animals and spreads rapidly if uncontrolled.’
History
FMD was first shown to be viral in 1897 by Friedrich Loeffler. After World War II, the disease was widely distributed throughout the world. While some countries have been free of FMD for some time, its wide host range and potential to spread rapidly causes international concern. Most European countries, including Britain, have now been formally recognised as disease free.
Symptoms in animals
It affects cloven hoofed animals, in particular cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, camels and deer. Those raised in crowded factory farm conditions or who are otherwise neglected are especially vulnerable to the severest symptoms. Fever is followed by the development of blisters, chiefly in the mouth or on the feet. FMD is rarely fatal, except in very young animals who may die without showing any symptoms. In dairy cows, there is a high incidence of abortion, chronic mastitis and lameness M conditions that are already endemic in dairy herds. In 1920s India, scientist Sir Albert Howard researched what was later called organic farming. Over many years, it is reported that his own cattle never became ill with FMD even though it was endemic and his animals literally rubbed noses with diseased cattle.
Source
The first confirmed case of the devastating 2001 UK outbreak was found in an Essex abattoir. This was traced back to a swill farm in Northumberland, where pigs were fed plate scrapings and other foodstuffs of animal origin (including pigmeat), that were considered unfit for human consumption. In the early ’70s, British pig farms were badly hit by an outbreak of swine vesicular disease, whose symptoms are practically indistinguishable from those of FMD. The source was again traced to swill farms and to the feeding of pigmeat to pigs. Infected animals secrete numerous viral particles M capable of becoming airborne before clinical signs appear. Transmission can take place on the wind and by the movement of animals, people and vehicles that have been contaminated with the virus. Long distance animal trading and dense populations of animals help to facilitate the spread. There were eight confirmed cases of FMD in one area in south Least England in 2007.
Routes of transmission
FMD crosses the species barrier with difficulty but a few cases of humans getting sick have been recorded. However, the Food Standards Agency considers that FMD has no implications for the human food chain.
Symptoms in people
Human symptoms are flu like with a fever and sore throat, although tingling blisters on the hands and feet and in the mouth have been recorded.
Treatment
During the 2001 UK outbreak, more than 10 million animals were killed. Many were shot with a captive bolt gun - a retractable metal bolt used to stun animals in abattoirs. Following this, their main arteries should have been cut or a metal rod inserted into the gun hole to destroy the brain stem use of this rod is now illegal. However, there is evidence that for many during the cull, this wasn’t the case, and they recovered consciousness and experienced their own slow deaths piled up with their fellows.Younger animals were killed by a painful and traumatic injection directly into the heart.Vaccination is an alternative to culling. However, vaccination programmes can affect the ability to trade freely in animals and meat products and so they are often resisted.