More About One of the Most Devastating Animal Diseases

One of the most economically devastating diseases in the world for those who raise cows, sheep, pigs, goats, deer and other cloven-hoofed animals is foot and mouth Disease (FMD). This incredibly contagious and fast-spreading disease causes fever, blisters on the feet and mouth (hence the name), loss of appetite, drooling, and lameness. Most herds affected are culled, as in the case of the 2001 outbreak in Great Britain when over 10 million animals had to be destroyed.

Traditional vaccines for FMD typically have three problems: first, there are so many different strains of the FMD virus that you must have a very well-matched vaccine to have any effect; second, traditional vaccines contain live FMD virus so they cannot be produced in the United States, and; third, depending on a vaccine's quality, it can be nearly impossible to determine whether an animal is actually infected, or has simply been exposed to the vaccine. Unless one can differentiate between vaccinated and infected animals, those animals vaccinated outside the U.S. with the traditional vaccine would be prohibited from entering any country that is designated FMD free. The United States has been FMD-free since 1929, but that is no guarantee that the disease will not strike again, as the UK learned in 2001 after being FMD-free for 34 years.

Foot and Mouth Disease Outbreak in North Korea
The Health Ministry in North Korea is battling an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease that has so far infected nearly 300 cows and pigs

Now, at the Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate's high-containment Plum Island Animal Disease Center (PIADC), located off the tip of Long Island, scientists have produced a molecular vaccine against one strain of FMD, that 1) does not use a live FMD virus for vaccine manufacture, and; 2) can be used to differentiate an infected from inoculated animal using common diagnostic tests.

Source-Eurekalert

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A highly contagious disease especially harmful to young children has killed 50 people in China this year, the health ministry said Friday as it warned the worst was yet to come.