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The year 2001, so far has been a hard one for farmer’s in Europe because their livestock are suffering from a devastating virus called Foot-And-Mouth disease.
So far Europe has confirmed fourteen-hundred cases of Foot-And-Mouth disease in their livestock., one million of the livestock have been slaughtered. Four-hundred-thousand of these animals still remain to be disposed of and
another five-hundred-seventy-five-thousand await to be culled.
Europe is starting to get a control on their Foot-And-Mouth disease. At the end of April Europe’s daily new cases of Foot-And-Mouth disease found was twenty-seven, that’s down from the forty-three new cases a day in March.
Foot-And-Mouth disease affects cloven-hoofed animals such as cattle, sheep, goats and swine. Foot-And-Mouth
disease doesn’t harm humans.
Foot-And-Mouth disease is really contagious, that’s what makes it so dangerous. It can be spread by basically by anything that comes in contact with an animal that’s infected with Foot-And-Mouth disease. This can include a piece
of clothing worn by a human or even a vehicle driven on an infected area.
Foot-And-Mouth disease spreads easily from one animal to another because once an animal is infected with the virus it’s transmitted from one animal to another through bodily fluids, discharges which includes milk and semen and
animals exhaling the virus from the lungs and respiratory tracks where the virus becomes airborne and affects other animals. This is what made Foot-And-Mouth disease spread so quickly in Europe because their sheep are allowed to
roam free. This caused sheep that were infected with Foot-And-Mouth disease, to spread it so easily to cattle in such a large ranged area. The virus also survives for a long period of time in areas where it’s cool and damp.
Foot-And-Mouth is hard to kill. The virus can stay alive for hours, days or even several months. In humans for seventy-six hours, dry menore for fourteen days, liquid menore for six months, urine for thirty-nine days and soil for
one month.
The only way that the Foot-And-Mouth virus can be killed is through pasturization such as with milk or with some disinfectants.
Livestock that has Foot-And-Mouth will show certain symptoms such as the animal will have a fever, and develop blisters in their mouth and on their feet. These blisters can cause severe lameness in the animal. Foot-And-Mouth disease can cause death in young livestock because it attacks their heart muscle.
Any animal believed to have Foot-And-Mouth disease is destroyed to stop the spread of the virus.
Even though the United States hasn’t seen an outbreak of Foot-And-Mouth disease since 1929. The United States has taken measures to try and keep Foot-And-Mouth disease confined to Europe but farmers in the United States are
still fearful of the disease showing up here.
Some of the precautions that the U.S.D.A. is taking is, the banning of all imports of livestock and raw meat from Europe, an increased inspection of incoming airline passangers from foreign countries, having federal agencies to
help prepare for an outbreak of Foot-And-Mouth disease, educating farmers and veternarians of the symptoms of Foot-And-Mouth disease.
There are things that humans can do to help prevent Foot-And-Mouth disease from entering the United States. Any person coming from Europe shouldn’t be allowed to travel on a farm for five days, any person who traveled to Europe should disinfect themselves and anything they traveled with, cows from a person from another country
shouldn’t be allowed on a farmers premices, if vistors from another country come to a producers farm they should be provided with overalls and boots and all trucks hauling cattle should be disinfected.
The best way to fight Foot-And-Mouth disease is to restrict the movement of people and animals, this is crucial to the containment of the disease.
If there ever would be an outbreak of Foot-And-Mouth disease in the United States, it would devestate the economy of agricultural. There are steps that the United States would take if an outbreak would occur here such as, the united
states would declare a state of emergency, the national guard and other security forces would prevent the movement of livestock, people and vehicles would be kept out within a five mile zone of the infected area, animals of an infected
area would be quickly killed, buried and burned, farms with the infected area would have to be thourally cleand, disinfected and would not be restocked for at least six months, farmers would be payed a market value for the livestock they lost and livestock would be destroyed one mile of the infected area.
Farmers aren’t the only ones who would be affected if Foot-And-Mouth disease entered the United States, consumers would be affected because their would be less meat and dairy products available. The price of these products would increase.
Foot-And-Mouth disease is a concern for all of us. Our only hope is that the preventions being taken in the United States is enough to save our agricultural economy from this devastating disease called Foot-And-Mouth.
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