HAMBURG (Reuters) – Much of Germany’s meat and dairy product exports outside the EU are no longer possible after the country’s first case of the livestock disease foot-and-mouth was confirmed on Friday, the country’s agriculture ministry said.
German authorities confirmed the country’s first outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in nearly 40 years in a herd of water buffalo on the outskirts of Berlin.
Foot-and-mouth disease causes fever and mouth blisters in cloven-hoofed ruminants such as cattle, swine, sheep and goats and in past decades has required major slaughtering campaigns to eradicate. Measures to contain the highly infectious disease, which poses no danger to humans, are being implemented.
Due to the loss of free status from foot-and-mouth disease under World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) requirements, numerous veterinary certificates for the export of products outside the EU can no longer be issued, Germany’s federal agriculture ministry warned.
This means exports of milk and dairy products, meat and meat products, hides and skins and blood products are “currently hardly possible”, the ministry said, adding that it also “assumed third countries would immediately impose bans on such goods from Germany,” it said.
German agriculture minister Cem Oezdemir said the immediate goal is to ensure the disease does not spread in order to minimise the impact on farming and food industries.
Authorities in Berlin and Brandenburg announced a six-day stop of livestock transport for animals which can transmit the disease while investigations into the cause continue.
The disease occurs regularly in the Middle East and Africa, in some Asian countries and South America.
(Reporting by Michael Hogan, editing by Kirsten Donovan)
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