Staying Informed

If you are interested in the FMD outbreak, GF refers you to the following:

• Defra information about FMD
• World Organisation for Animal Health - Foot and Mouth Disease
  
• Warmwell - an independent site that monitors and reports on issues faced by UK Farms
• ProMed - Alerts from the International Society for Infectious Diseases(*)
  

The World Organisation for Animal Health tells us about the disease:

Transmission

• Direct or indirect contact (droplets)
• Animate vectors (humans, etc.)
• Inanimate vectors (vehicles, implements)
• Airborne, especially temperate zones (up to 60 km overland and 300 km by sea)

Sources of virus

• Incubating and clinically affected animals
• Breath, saliva, faeces, and urine; milk and semen (up to 4 days before clinical signs)
• Meat and by-products in which pH has remained above 6.0
• Carriers: particularly cattle and water buffalo; convalescent animals and exposed vaccinates (virus persists in the oropharynx for up to 30 months in cattle or longer in buffalo, 9 months in sheep). African Cape buffalo are the major maintenance host of SAT serotypes

(*)Who'd have thought that Infectious Diseases had their own Society?