Hungary finds explanation for foot-and-mouth disease outbreak
10 April 2025 21:12
Hungary has raised the possibility of a biological attack as one of the sources of the first foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in more than half a century. The outbreak of the disease caused massive border closures and cattle slaughter in the northwestern part of Hungary.
This was reported by Reuters, according to "Komersant Ukrainian".
Hungary considers the cause of the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease to be a “biological attack”
The first case of foot-and-mouth disease was reported last month at a cattle farm near the border with Austria and Slovakia.
According to the World Organization for Animal Health, the Hungarian authorities reported the outbreak, which was the first in more than half a century. By Thursday, animal health authorities had inspected nearly a thousand farms across the country, and only four of them in the affected region tested positive for the virus.
As a result, Gergely Gulyás, chief of staff to Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, said that it was impossible to rule out that the virus was not of natural origin at this point and suggested a possible biological attack. Answering questions from journalists, he added that the suspicion was based on verbal information from a foreign laboratory, although the results of the research have not yet been confirmed.
According to the latest census, the number of cattle in Hungary is 861,000, which is only a small part of the total livestock population in the European Union. Although not a threat to humans, foot-and-mouth disease is a serious danger to animals, causing fever and blisters in cloven-hoofed animals, which can lead to serious economic consequences due to trade restrictions.
Thousands of cattle had to be slaughtered to contain the spread of the disease, while neighboring countries Austria and Slovakia closed dozens of border crossings after the outbreak reached southern Slovakia.
Paul Meixner, an Austrian-Hungarian farmer who owns one of the affected farms, shared his experiences.
“Everyone was just standing there crying, not believing it could be true,” he said.
Despite the losses of 1.5 billion forints (about $4 million) due to the slaughter of 3,000 cattle, the farmer said he was not going to give up and plans to resume his business.
“In two weeks we will start harvesting hay for next year’s feed,” he added.
