Published Date: 2022-06-27 21:32:21 BST
Subject: PRO/AH/EDR> Foot & mouth disease - Egypt: livestock, spread, regional impact
Archive Number: 20220627.8704110
FOOT & MOUTH DISEASE - EGYPT: LIVESTOCK, SPREAD, REGIONAL IMPACT
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Date: Tue 21 Jun 2022
Source: El Balad [in Arabic, trans. Mod.SF, abridged, edited]
https://www.elbalad.news/5329149
News of the spread of foot-and-mouth disease among livestock has circulated through social media [in Egypt]. Many of the livestock have died while the Ministry of Agriculture's announcement to vaccinate the livestock during campaigns in all provinces has had a significant impact on this sector.
In this regard, Hussein Abu Saddam, head of the Farmers' Union, said that there has been a spread of foot-and-mouth disease among livestock in recent times but the disease is gradually receding, pointing out that its spread has led to a decline in the prices of breeding livestock.
He noted that a large number of young breeders had not immunized their livestock against foot-and-mouth disease despite the availability of vaccine doses at the Ministry of Agriculture.
Abu Saddam has appealed in a statement to El Balad about the need to transport vaccines safely so that the vaccine does not spoil during transport, and advised the need to have a veterinary unit in every cattle market so that foot-and-mouth disease does not spread among livestock.
[Byline: Chayma Majdi]
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[Similar reports on FMD spread in many governorates are available in several other national media sources (e.g., https://tinyurl.com/yfv6dbwb, https://tinyurl.com/v6pn79yt; in Arabic).
On its north-east, Egypt borders the Gaza strip's district of the Palestinian Authority (PA) where, in December 2021, FMDV serotype O, topotype EA-3 was identified in cattle, reported to WOAH on 24 Dec 2021 (20211224.8700454). The strain was genotyped by WRLFMD. It was closely related (99.7 % identical) to Egyptian 2017 strains of the same topotype, and most likely introduced from Sinai to the Gaza strip, as had happened several times earlier. See the table "Most Closely Related Sequences" at https://www.wrlfmd.org/sites/world/files/quick_media/WRLMEG-2021-00021-PAT-GTR-O-O_001.pdf.
It may be assumed that this East African virus strain, which has been the dominant strain in Egypt in recent years, is involved in the current event in Egypt. The potential involvement of additional African strains, which have been identified in Egypt during the last decade (such as serotype SAT2 topotype VII of several lineages and serotype A topotype Africa lineage G-IV) deserves to be examined.
Regional alertness concerning this exotic virus strain is warranted, particularly, in Egypt's immediate neighbors Palestinian Authority, Israel, and Jordan. - Mod.AS
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Egypt: https://promedmail.org/promed-post?place=8704110,55]