Pied and mouth disease is a viral disease that mainly affects cattle, sheep, goats and pigs. The disease does not threaten any threat to human health, but infected animals suffer a lot and their production of milk or meat is reduced. Most animals survive infection, but can carry the very contagious virus for a long time – hence the need to quickly contain any epidemic by quarantine and the slaughter of infected and healthy animals.
The EU has a large legal framework to control epidemics, including commercial restrictions on sensitive animals and their products. All Member States are forced to have emergency plans. The state -supported laboratories must collaborate with the EU reference laboratory so that experts can help define the best emergency measures for each epidemic. The resulting slaughter and trade restrictions often result in strong economic losses in the agricultural sector. Assigned Member States may request that EU remuneration funds be provided after calculating total costs suffered by farmers and that the sector supply chain has been calculated.
In Slovakia, the foot and mouth virus has so far been detected in at least six farms, and between 6,000 and 7,000 animals have been slaughtered to date. Hundreds of farms are under strict surveillance and suffer disinfection.
Just outside the perimeter of the affected area, the Mikulas Agro -Cractrate dairy has so far been spared the disease. But potential detection of a single virus inside would mean the sacrifice of its 6,000 animals, including 3,000 dairy cows. Each year, the farm produces some 35 million liters of milk. He employs 200 staff members and is a key employer in this mainly rural area of Slovakia.
Access is restricted. The incoming workers and machines are subject to strict disinfection procedures.
“We spray the wheels of all the trucks. The employees who come must go through a clean and dirty area and take showers a few times a day, ”explains the farmer and owner of the agro-industry Martin Zahumenský. “It's very stressful. Whenever I receive a call from one (another) farm, we expect bad news and to be honest, I cannot sleep very well. We are very worried about the company. ”
Their agricultural activity includes 5,500 hectares of fields where corn, soy and wheat are cultivated, mainly as food for dairy cows, the cornerstone of all their agro-industry.
The farm is a family business founded 30 years ago by Martin's father. They looked with increasing anxiety how the virus destroyed other farms from the region.
“I really feel for those who have been affected,” explains Marian Zahumenský, farmer and CEO of the farm. “One of the affected farms is a member of the same association of breeders as us; We work in close collaboration. I can imagine the tragedy that struck them; I deeply relate to people who have built and cared for all their herd. It was a huge amount of effort and years of work. ”
“All farmers are affected economicly by the current situation because they must spend a lot of money in disinfection and all kinds of biosecurity measures,” explains Martin. “So, first of all, the government should reimburse them and help them cover these costs. And in the event of farms where they had to kill all their animals, they must reimburse these losses very quickly, because without … the aid of the government, without the help of the European Union, these farms will not be able to start running again.”
In efforts to contain the propagation of the foot and mouth virus, certain border passages between Austria and Hungary have been closed. Others, between Slovakia and neighboring Hungary and the Czech Republic are carefully controlled.
Since the start of the crisis, the Olomouc state veterinary institute in the Czech Republic has received 57 -farm samples in the affected area of Slovakia, twice a week.
These analyzes are crucial to control the potential propagation of the disease through the EU.
The virus is a calamitarian for animals and agricultural production, but does not normally affect people, insists the director of the laboratory: “The milk that has undergone pasteurization and meat that have undergone the maturation process, especially if it is always treated with heat, is sure and does not endanger the health of consumers”, explains Jan Bardoň.
Is Europe correctly ready to prevent the spread of the virus through its open borders and the common market?
ADVERTISEMENT“European cooperation is at a very good level,” replies Bardoň. “There is a fast alert system by which the veterinary authorities of each Member State are immediately informed. There is a unique prevention strategy within the EU, but each country must adapt it to its specific geographic or climatic conditions, local resources or characteristics of the farm. There is, for example, a difference if we are dealing with a farm with 10,000 cattle or a farm with five cows. ”
The European Commission has just reminded the Member States affected that emergency measures will be permanently adapted to the evolution of the epidemiological situation.
