Germany races to contain foot-and-mouth outbreak amid export fears

By AFP

Germany took further steps Monday to limit the potential spread of foot-and-mouth disease, as an outbreak of the virus threatened to hit the country's agricultural exports.

The authorities were testing animals and limiting transport from an area near Berlin where three cases were reported in water buffalo on Friday, the first reported incidence of the virus in Germany since 1988.

South Korea and Mexico had told Berlin they would halt pork imports from Germany while the cases were being contained, a spokesman for Germany's agricultural ministry said.

The head of the German farmer's union, Joachim Rukwied, said the disease was threatening livestock owners with "considerable" losses.

"Export markets will disappear," if the virus is allowed to spread, Rukwied told the Rheinische Post daily. "Speed and determination count. Everything must be done to contain this outbreak."

Foot-and-mouth disease is a highly contagious viral infection that is not dangerous to humans but which affects cattle and other cloven-hoofed animals, including sheep and pigs.

Symptoms include fever and blisters in the mouth and near the hoof.

The three infected water buffalo had died and the 11 other animals in the herd had been culled.

A three-kilometre (1.9-mile) exclusion zone was set up around the farm where the buffalo were kept in the eastern Brandenburg region which surrounds Berlin.

Officials ordered all animals from within the zone that could have contracted the disease to be tested.

Brandenburg agriculture ministry on Monday said it had extended an initial three-day ban on the transportation of at-risk animals and carcasses to the end of Wednesday.

The extra time was needed "so that all the necessary test results are available", the ministry said in a statement.

Culling order

No further cases of foot-and-mouth disease had so far been identified, Brandenburg's agriculture minister Hanka Mittelstaedt said earlier on Monday.

"As of this morning, the samples currently being evaluated have not shown any further positive findings," Mittelstaedt told regional broadcaster RBB.

A further 55 animals fed with hay from the affected farm were set to be culled on Monday as a precaution, RBB reported.

While Mexico and South Korea had imposed import restrictions, exports to countries within the European Union's single market are still allowed for products that "do not come from the restricted zones", agriculture ministry spokesman Michael Hauck said.

Over the weekend, Berlin's two zoos remained closed to the public as a precautionary measure.

Similarly, no cattle, pigs, sheep or goats would be allowed at a major agricultural trade fair, set to open in Berlin on Friday.

The restrictions at the "Gruene Woche" (Green Week) show were intended to limit the spread of the disease, the agricultural ministry said on Sunday.

In a previous outbreak in Europe, more than 2,000 animals were culled to control the disease in the UK after a spate of cases in 2007, according to the British government.

In 2011, hundreds of animals were culled in Bulgaria after an outbreak there.