Foot and mouth disease (viral disease of even-toed ungulates) has been eradicated in the EU countries few decades ago. And only occasionally it gets accidentaly re-introduced. Sometimes these outbreaks cause large economic losses like in the UK in year 2001.
Recent (March/April 2025) disease outbreak at several large dairy cattle farms in Hungary and Slovakia has been caused by a virus serotype that was last seen in Pakistan. Many had speculated about possible way of spread into Europe but there is no proved cause yet (like illegal animal movement from South Asia to Hungary etc.). Some local conspirators even infer it is part of some economical/political warfare and other nonsense.
The following article however brings up the first clear link to South Asia. The large cattle farms (owned by foreign investment companies) where the virus was detected is staffed by many guest workers from India and Philippines. They are hired because of shortage of local agriculture workers. They frequently rotate between the EU and their home country because they use 6-month seasonal worker visa.
Article
Guest workers are processed by temp work agencies who I guess tend to hire people with former experience with cattle farming eg. often people who grew up and still work at family farms. With increased air traffic with direct lines (eg India-Vienna), they can travel between their Indian village where foot and mouth disease is endemic and Hungarian countryside under 24 hours.
Subsequent spread of FMD disease between cattle farms has not been clearly explained yet, with one exception. A hoof trimmer worked at one Hungarian farm 2 days before disease outbreak was detected there and then he visited other large farms in both Hungary and Slovakia so he unvoluntary spread it. (South Slovakia has majority Hungarian speakers so there is zero economic or linguistic barrier in that area).
I think this is cautional tale also for zoos that keep ungulates because it shows two main ways of human-assisted spread of FMD. First is own staff visiting endemic countries where they have close contact with domestic even-toed ungulates. Second is hired staff (like hoof-trimmers, inseminators, vets etc.) that frequently visit many animal holdings and can become local disease vectors.
Could frequent zoo visitors like some world-trotting zoochatters be considered a potential risk too?
Recent (March/April 2025) disease outbreak at several large dairy cattle farms in Hungary and Slovakia has been caused by a virus serotype that was last seen in Pakistan. Many had speculated about possible way of spread into Europe but there is no proved cause yet (like illegal animal movement from South Asia to Hungary etc.). Some local conspirators even infer it is part of some economical/political warfare and other nonsense.
The following article however brings up the first clear link to South Asia. The large cattle farms (owned by foreign investment companies) where the virus was detected is staffed by many guest workers from India and Philippines. They are hired because of shortage of local agriculture workers. They frequently rotate between the EU and their home country because they use 6-month seasonal worker visa.
Article
Guest workers are processed by temp work agencies who I guess tend to hire people with former experience with cattle farming eg. often people who grew up and still work at family farms. With increased air traffic with direct lines (eg India-Vienna), they can travel between their Indian village where foot and mouth disease is endemic and Hungarian countryside under 24 hours.
Subsequent spread of FMD disease between cattle farms has not been clearly explained yet, with one exception. A hoof trimmer worked at one Hungarian farm 2 days before disease outbreak was detected there and then he visited other large farms in both Hungary and Slovakia so he unvoluntary spread it. (South Slovakia has majority Hungarian speakers so there is zero economic or linguistic barrier in that area).
I think this is cautional tale also for zoos that keep ungulates because it shows two main ways of human-assisted spread of FMD. First is own staff visiting endemic countries where they have close contact with domestic even-toed ungulates. Second is hired staff (like hoof-trimmers, inseminators, vets etc.) that frequently visit many animal holdings and can become local disease vectors.
Could frequent zoo visitors like some world-trotting zoochatters be considered a potential risk too?
