Agency Report –
Potsdam, Germany – Officials in the eastern German state of Brandenburg have ordered further livestock to be killed in an effort to stop an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) discovered among water buffaloes last week.
On Monday, 55 goats and sheep as well as three cattle are to be culled on a farm in the town of Schöneiche, just north of Berlin, as a precautionary measure, according to a local government spokeswoman in the Oder-Spree district.
The farm had purchased hay from another farm in the nearby town of Hönow, where FMD was discovered in samples after three water buffaloes were found dead in the pasture.
But no other cases of FMD, a highly contagious disease that affects cloven-hoofed animals, such as cattle, pigs and sheep.
It does not pose a danger to humans, but is considered a serious issue because of the potentially massive losses it can cause in livestock.
“As of this morning, the samples currently being analysed have not shown any further positive results,” Brandenburg’s agriculture minister, Hanka Mittelstädt, told regional public broadcaster rbb on Monday.
She said that the animals on the farm in Schöneiche are considered a contact herd, and that killing the animals is part of normal disease control measures.
“The culling order had to be issued there because the spread must be significantly contained. We don’t know whether the hay actually contained the foot-and-mouth disease virus,” Mittelstädt said.
It remains unclear how the water buffaloes were exposed to FMD. Germany had not experienced a confirmed outbreak of the disease since 1988, and no cases have ever previously been reported in Brandenburg.
