FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE
, foot and mouth disease was an enzoo-epizooty in continental countries like France, that is to say, a permanent enzooty interrupted
by epizootic peaks. However, in countries protected by their insularity, like England, FMD has been purely epizootic, being completely silent between the peaks. France, like most of European countries, has led a medico-sanitary prophylactic policy for FMD from 1960 to 1991, and managed to progressively obtain the vanishing of the disease and the virus. A small outbreak of the disease occurred in 1974: about a hundred foci were affected.
, slaughter measures were taken. Epizootic peaks
in 1979 and 1981, both of them leading to the killing of thousands of animals again, including cows, sheep, goats and pigs. Moreover,
1992, FMD vaccination has been forbidden in Europe.
, in the 2001 uk outbreak, nearly 50,000 animals, most of them sheep, were slaughtered and disposed of in a preventive way. This offended public opinion.
, ( september the 29th, 2003) European regulations have been modified in order to authorize an emergency vaccination which could be or not followed by the slaughter of the vaccinated animals. |