Terrifying virus shuts European borders ? Whats this now?

[Purplerain269]

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/terrifying-virus-shuts-europe-borders-35037628.amp

Erm, just what it says. Foot and mouth. We have ever so often here in the UK. Around 10 years ago there was an outbreak in Hants/Surrey near me. Devastating for the family farms affected - their livestock was killed/destroyed - but there are protocols (incl closing borders until source identified and contamination traced/eradicated).

Nothing for us to worry about.

I don't think it's something for us to worry about, it's spread by contact, and it's easier to contain it within heards of animals than a disease within people.

Plus there can be mass slaughters of infected herds to stop outbreaks, not exactly something that can be done to people.

I remember a big outbreak in the UK in approx the year 2000, it decimated the farming community and cost them millions I believe, but it didn't affect the non-farming community much tbh. I know how awful that sounds, but its not another covid

Clickbait garbage from a Retch plc outlet. But "Recurrence of well-known disease that happens from time to time, normal sanitary procedures are in place" is less scary than "Terrifying virus".

The bit about "PM says it may be 'biological attack'" refers not to Keir Starmer but to Viktor Orbán, the authoritarian populist PM of Hungary. He blames anything that goes wrong on foreigners, and his supporters are a bit gullible (does this sound familiar?), so maybe some of them will buy this obvious lie.

We had it in the UK in 2001 and it was a horrifying time but we got through it.

From gov,UK site
9 Apr 2025 — There are currently no cases in the UK,

Foot and Mouth (FMD) is a zoonotic disease, i.e. it can pass between species including humans. It is however rare for humans to get it even if exposed. It often doesn't kill adult animals or humans, youngstock can be much more vulnerable and it can be fatal in them.

Part of the issue is the devastation it causes to our food chain. We were supposed to have something to help tackle it by the 1980s after the 1964 outbreak so the wholesale slaughter of millions of animals wouldn't be needed but nothing came about and every flock or herd that gets it is killed.

There are occasional localised flurries and very occasionally/rarely broader cases of FMD but the papers do love to scare the crap out of people

In fact there are vaccines for FMD, but they are not used in countries that don't have many outbreaks because they make it hard to export animals. The importing country can't tell if they have been vaccinated or infected. (When I first heard this I had trouble believing it too.)

Yawn. It happens now and then. I remember 2001 clearly. They had to cull hundreds of thousands of sheep and then there were piles of bodies in every field being burnt.