A case of foot-and-mouth disease has been confirmed at a farm housing 66 sheep and goats in Pachna, Limassol district, in what the Director General of the Ministry of Agriculture described as a particularly worrying development.
Speaking on CyBC’s morning programme, Andreas Grigoriou said the virus did not reach the area on its own and noted that transmission occurs through people, animals and machinery. He called on livestock farmers to apply strict biosecurity measures at their units to protect their animals.
Grigoriou said the relevant authorities would move immediately today to cull the animals at the infected farm in an effort to contain the outbreak.
On the management of units housing heritage breed animals, he said a relevant decision was expected from the Director of Veterinary Services, who has responsibility for that matter. Grigoriou noted that to date only two heritage breed animals had contracted foot-and-mouth disease, and that these had not been culled.
According to a subsequent update from the Ministry of Agriculture, the affected farm is not located within a livestock area of high unit density. It lies within a livestock zone where farms are more sparsely distributed and do not directly border one another. The unit is a small family farm, relatively distant from the nearest neighbouring unit. A number of farms are recorded within a three-kilometre radius.
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