Foot and mouth alert

The Bulgarian wild boars tested positive to foot and mouth disease Foto: Arhivă Agerpres.

The National Sanitary and Food Safety Authority (NSFSA) raised an alert over foot and mouth virus, the most dangerous animal disease, after a case of foot and mouth disease in wild boars was confirmed in Bulgaria.

Therefore, on Friday, the head of the National Sanitary and Food Safety Authority, Radu Roatiş-Cheţan, invited a group of experts to design a surveillance and protection strategy.

According to a press release, ‘the counties Constanţa, Tulcea, Călăraşi, Giurgiu, Teleorman, Olt and Dolj represent the areas with the highest risk factors for the introduction of the virus to Romania’.

The National Authority informed the local authorities in all these counties and the hunters associations about this situation.

‘This disease is very contagious, and the economic consequences can be disastrous, entire areas can be isolated. The European Union is immediately notified of any outbreak of a disease and after a special committee is gathered, member states put into practice its decisions.

’We have taken control and prevention measures in the high risk areas located at the border with Bulgaria, and our experts together with the local authorities are doing everything in their power to eliminate any possibility of contamination’, stated Roatiş-Cheţan in the press release.

The wild boars that tested positive to Foot and Mouth Disease were shot by hunters in the Burgas region, in an area located two kilometres from the border with Turkey.

‘According to the World Organisation for Animal Health, Romania last reported cases of foot and mouth disease in 1947’, mentioned the NSFSA.

The National Authority reminds us about the foot and mouth epidemic that affected UK in 2001, when approximately six million animals were killed.

The epidemic caused losses in agriculture and the food chain worth £3.1 billion.

Translated by: Raluca Mizdrea
MA Student, MTTLC, Bucharest University