Hungary: Biological attack could be source of foot-and-mouth outbreak

Hungary on Thursday steered a “biological attack” as a doable supply of the nation’s first foot-and-mouth illness outbreak in additional than half a century, which has triggered border closures and the mass slaughter of cattle within the northwest.

Hungary reported a primary case of foot-and-mouth illness in over 50 years on a cattle farm within the northwest close to the border with Austria and Slovakia final month, the World Organisation for Animal Health mentioned, citing Hungarian authorities.

Animal well being authorities had made checks at almost 1,000 farms throughout Hungary by Thursday, with solely 4 within the affected northwestern area returning optimistic outcomes.

“At this stage, we can say that it cannot be ruled out that the virus was not of natural origin, we may be dealing with an artificially engineered virus,” Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s chief of employees, Gergely Gulyas advised a media briefing.

Responding to a query, Gulyas mentioned he couldn’t rule out that the virus outbreak was the results of a organic assault, with out giving data on who is perhaps accountable.

He additionally mentioned that suspicion was based mostly on verbal data acquired from a international laboratory and that their findings haven’t but been absolutely confirmed and documented.

Hungary’s cattle inventory numbered 861,000 head based mostly on a livestock census in December, little modified from ranges a 12 months earlier. That constituted 1.2% of the European Union’s whole cattle shares, official statistics confirmed.

Foot-and-mouth illness poses no hazard to people however causes fever and mouth blisters in cloven-hoofed ruminants corresponding to cattle, swine, sheep and goats, and outbreaks usually result in commerce restrictions.

Thousands of cattle needed to be culled because the landlocked nation tried to comprise the outbreak, whereas Austria and Slovakia have closed dozens of border crossings, after the illness additionally appeared within the southern a part of Slovakia.

“Everyone was just standing there, crying and saying that this cannot be true, that this was impossible,” mentioned Paul Meixner, an Austrian-Hungarian twin citizen, who owns of one of many affected farms in Hungary.

While his business has taken a 1.5 billion forint ($4.09 million) loss after culling 3,000 cattle and different livestock, Meixner has vowed to rebuild.

“In two weeks, we will start harvesting and storing the hay,” he mentioned. “We need the fodder for next year.”