Subj: Brazil Begins Killing Cattle
Date: 5/16/01 7:41:54 PM Mountain Daylight Time
From: AOL News

Brazil Begins Killing Cattle

By STAN LEHMAN
.c The Associated Press
 

SANTANA DO LIVRAMENTO, Brazil (AP) - Armed with .22 caliber rifles, police on Wednesday began slaughtering hundreds of cattle on ranches infected with highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul.

Some 208 head of cattle were to be killed at the Cabanha Sao Pedro Ranch, where the disease was detected May 5, said David Martins, president of the cattle ranchers union of Santana do Livramento.

About 90 miles away, officials began slaughtering some 100 animals in Alegrete, where an outbreak of the disease was reported at the Agropecuaria Combate ranch on May 5.

``The slaughtering began this afternoon and could take all night,'' said Martins at the Cabanha Sao Pedro ranch. ``It was the only option we had to be absolutely sure the disease would not spread.''

Army troops backed by police officers blocked the entrance at the two ranches as the slaughtering began.

Meanwhile, the Agriculture Ministry on Wednesday confirmed new outbreaks in two Alegrete ranches that together have a herd of nearly 1,000 head of cattle. Officials did not say how many animals were infected.

Agriculture Minister Marcus Vinicius Pratini de Moraes said $2.2 million had been set aside to compensate ranchers whose cattle are slaughtered.

The ministry on Tuesday recommended the voluntary slaughter of all animals in neighboring properties that may have had some contact with the affected ranches.

The recommendation was contained in a document sent to Jose Hermeto Hoffmann, Rio Grande do Sul's agriculture secretary. He opposed such a a cull and said it would result in the killing of at least 400,000 uninfected and vaccinated animals.

The state's ranches account for almost one-tenth of Brazil's herd of 160 million head of cattle and 8 percent of its beef exports.

Foot-and-mouth disease generally strikes cows, pigs, sheep and goats. It causes animals to lose weight but is not deadly. The disease does not infect people.

AP-NY-05-16-01 2140EDT

Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.  All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

Argentine foot-and-mouth outbreaks jump to 291
 

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, April 23 (Reuters) - Argentina has discovered 291 outbreaks of the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease since the beginning of March, official figures released on Monday showed.

New cases have brought the total number of infected animals discovered since March 13 to 12,060, according to the Web site of the country's food and animal health inspection service Senasa.

The outbreak of foot-and-mouth led Argentina's main markets to close their doors to meat imports from the world's fifth biggest beef exporter. Argentina shipped some $600 million worth of meat last year.

The foot-and-mouth virus, which can be easily transported on clothes, vehicles and the air, causes sores on the feet and mouths of cloven-hoofed animals such as cattle and sheep.

The disease also reduces meat and milk production and interferes with reproduction, though it rarely affects humans.

To stop the spread of the virus, the government decided to vaccinate 98 percent of the country's nearly 50 million head of cattle. So far, more than 17 million cattle have been inoculated.

Foot-and-mouth has become a major concern throughout the world in recent months. Some 1,471 outbreaks have been discovered in Europe, the majority of them in Great Britain.
 

Cases of foot and mouth disease in humans
By LANCE GAY Scripps Howard News Service  April 17, 2001

- While the U.S. government says there is little danger to humans from the
foot-and-mouth epidemic raging in Europe, medical journals document more
than 40 cases of transmission of the animal disease to humans, including serious
blistering and loss of skin.

There have been no reports of human deaths from the virus, but a March 10
article in the British Medical Journal says there is no doubt the
foot-and-mouth virus can be transmitted to humans. Transmissions seem to be
rare and result generally in blisters on the hands, mouth and feet that
disappear after two weeks.

In one case, though, physicians reported the skin on a patient's feet
"peeled off like sandals, in one piece."

"Foot and mouth disease is a zoonosis, a disease transmissible to humans,
but it crosses the species barrier with difficulty and with little effect,''
British public health specialists Henry Prempeh and Robert Smith wrote in
the British Medical Journal. The article said the strain of the virus most
frequently found in humans is the same type 0 foot-and-mouth virus that has
infected cloven-hoofed animals in Europe. The type A strain, which is
currently found in South America, is rarely detected in humans, they said.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta says instances of
transmission from animals to human are rare. The agency says it does not
recommend a travel ban to Britain, where the outbreak began in February.
More than 16 million people came to the United States from a British airport in
1999.

Charles Fallis, a spokesman for the centers, said the agency regards
foot-and-mouth as a serious animal disease, "but we don't consider it a
zoonosis."

In a statement, the centers said "FMD is not considered a human disease
because humans rarely contract FMD; it causes few or mild symptoms in humans
when it does occur, and it does not affect the human food chain."

But the centers do urge travelers to take precautions and avoid going into
farming areas because humans can transmit the virus to susceptible animals
if they come into contact with infected livestock, soil, or objects that have
been contaminated with the FMD virus. The FMD virus can easily be carried on
articles of clothing and footwear.

Animal specialist Suzanne Millman, who directs scientific programs and
sustainable agriculture at the U.S. Humane Society, said that children, the
elderly, and those with compromised immune systems are most at risk of
catching the virus.

"It's definitely worth pointing out," Millman said.

The Humane Society is critical of U.S. efforts to prevent the disease from
coming to the United States, contending more vaccine should be produced, and
preventive measures taken at factory farms that have huge concentrations of
livestock. Many U.S. farms have adopted bio-security programs on their own
in recent weeks, aimed at keeping international travelers away from animals to
avoid transmission.

Medical journals say transmission of the foot-and-mouth virus to humans was
first documented in 1834, when three veterinarians got the disease by
deliberately drinking raw milk from infected cattle. There also were several
outbreaks in the 19th century among school children given unpasteurized milk
or cheeses made from raw milk.

A 1997 article in the Archives of Virology identified "more than 40 human
cases" of foot and mouth in medical literature, and found at least 38 papers
published in medical journals from 1921 to 1969 describing the clinical
progress of the disease in humans. Those cases were all confirmed in
laboratory tests as being the animal disease.

Most of the cases involved farmers, veterinarians, butchers and others who
had direct contact with infected animals. But in 1996, British physicians
documented a case of transmission to a Yorkshire man who developed blisters
on his hands, tongue and between his toes after watching infected animals
being burned on a farm. The blisters disappeared after several weeks, but a
fresh set reappeared five months later.

(Contact Lance Gay at gayl@shns.com or visit SHNS on the Web at http://www.shns.com.)

Zoonoses.org  .