Foot and mouth crisis deepens in Hungary and Slovakia
The difficulty of finding places to bury culled livestock sums up the horror of the continuing outbreak of foot and mouth across Hungary and Slovakia.
Last week, the Austrian authorities started testing groundwater when it discovered that some of the cattle culled from infected herds in Hungary had been buried six kilometres from the Austrian-Hungarian border. Within Hungary, there have been local objections to livestock burials.
Even in neighbouring countries, a foot and mouth outbreak raises fears. In Austria, the military was mobilised to prevent the infectious disease from entering the country.
But the real victims are, of course, the owners of more than 8,000 livestock, which had to be disposed of since the disease was first detected in Hungary at the beginning of March.
Up to this week, the disease was found in five farms in Hungary, and six in neighbouring Slovakia. More than 6,000 cattle had to be put down in Slovakia.
According to the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH), annual losses from foot and mouth are estimated at between €6.5bn and 21bn in regions where the disease is endemic, and more than €1.5bn when outbreaks occur in foot and mouth free zones.
The viral illness affects cloven-hoofed animals such as cows, pigs, sheep, and goats. It causes fever, painful blisters around the mouth and hooves, and spreads rapidly via contaminated equipment, feed, vehicles, clothing, and even human contact with infected surfaces.
Though humans cannot catch the disease, they can inadvertently spread it. Containment requires quarantine, trade restrictions, vaccination, monitoring, and the slaughter of both infected and at-risk animals.
In Hungary, vaccination of cattle on farms where the disease is detected is carried out immediately, to minimise virus shedding until the cattle are killed and buried. Testing of susceptible animals is ongoing, and farms are being checked at random for compliance with the containment rules.
But the disease kept spreading, and epidemiological investigations of the latest fifth case revealed no trace back to previous outbreaks. In fact, samples taken at this dairy farm in Rábapordány (60 km south of the most recent previous outbreak) on March 11 and 23, and at the pig farm associated with it on April 4, 9 and 10, had all yielded negative results.
However, one dairy cow in the herd of 600 presented symptoms during morning milking on April 17. The farm is near the borders with Slovakia and Austria.
The spread of the disease has led some in the governments of Hungary and Slovakia (both foot and mouth free for more than 50 years) to suggest the outbreaks could be linked to bioterrorism, but without presenting any supporting scientific evidence.
However, unregulated animal movement and the breakdown of safe trade practices are more likely causes, according to the World Organisation for Animal Health.
By the 1990s, most countries in the EU had gained foot and mouth free status, according to the WOAH. But in 2001 and 2007, the disease recurred in the UK (no country wants a repeat of the 2001 UK outbreak with the loss of more than 10 million animals, and a crisis costing more than €15 billion).
Russia reported it in 2005, with recurrences that ended in 2022. Bulgaria reported an outbreak in 2011. Germany had an outbreak in 2025 (but regained foot and mouth free status in March, except for the contaminated zones).
Sheep and goat plague
It may be significant that Hungary was also hit this year by its first occurrence of Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR), also known as sheep and goat plague. This large geographical leap for the PPR virus is typical of animal migration or trade issues, which may also be behind the foot and mouth outbreak.
Africa, Asia and the Middle East are the regions most affected by PPR and foot and mouth, but several incursions into new areas, such as Europe, have been observed in recent years.
Animal movement, both legal and illegal, has been a major factor in the spread of PPR within and between countries in Europe, as well as globally, said the WOAH.
Following an outbreak in Greece in 2016, PPR resurfaced in Georgia in 2024, in Bulgaria in 2018 and 2024, Greece again in 2024, Romania in 2024 and 2025, and now Hungary in 2025.
PPR and foot and mouth know no political or geographical limits, and surveillance, prevention, management of animal movement, and adequate veterinary services are required to keep them at bay.
That is why other countries have reacted quickly to Hungarian and Slovakian outbreaks, with, for example, the UK upgrading the risk of foot and mouth incursion to medium, and taking some new measures. These include banning personal imports of meat and dairy products from the EU.
Austria closed 21 border crossings with Hungary, allowing entry only at the larger crossings and only with disinfection. Many member states have banned live animal and other agricultural commodity imports from Hungary and Slovakia.
DAFM has confirmed that no susceptible animals moved into Ireland from Austria, Slovakia, or Hungary this year. It said anyone arriving in Ireland following contact with susceptible animals in foot and mouth affected areas must take biosecurity precautions.
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