Foot-and-mouth In U.S.S.R.

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31548, 9 December 1967, Page 13

Foot-and-mouth In U.S.S.R.

(N.Z P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

ROME, December 8.

Outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease have been reported in three Soviet republics bordering Rumania, Czechoslovakia and Poland, a United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation expert said yesterday.

Dr G. M. Boldrini, secretary of the F.A.O.’s European commission for the control of the disease, said that Rumania and some other East European countries were taking strong measures to prevent the spread of the disease from the Soviet Union.

Dr Boldrini had just returned from Rumania, where he was called in to advise the Government on setting up a buffer zone of vaccinated animals along the country’s eastern frontier. Britain’s foot-and-mouth epidemic, which has caused the slaughter of nearly 270,000 cattle, sheep and pigs, entered its seventh week today. Dr Boldrini said tjie Soviet Union was suffering from outbreaks of the A-22 strain of the disease, which might prove more devastating to European livestock than the 0-1 virus which caused the epidemic in Britain, because of lack of specific protection against it. Information was scant on the outbreaks in the Soviet Union because it was not an F.A.O. member. However the foot-and-mouth situation in

Central Europe was quite satisfactory. Apart from the epidemic in Britain and some outbreaks in the Iberian Peninsula, the situation was better now than it had been for a long time. Dr Boldrini said the drastic measures being taken in Britain would practically rule out contamination of other countries.