BUDAPEST (Reuters) – An investigation is underway in Hungary to reveal how foot-and-mouth disease appeared in the west of the country on four cattle farms, Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff told a briefing on Thursday.
Last month Hungary reported a first case of foot-and-mouth disease in more than 50 years, on a cattle farm in the northwest of the country, the World Organisation for Animal Health said citing Hungarian authorities.
“At this stage, we can say that it cannot be ruled out that the virus was not of natural origin, we may be dealing with an artificially engineered virus,” chief of staff Gergely Gulyas said, without elaborating.
Thousands of cattle have had to be culled as the country tries to contain the outbreak, while neighbouring Austria and Slovakia have closed dozens of border crossings with Hungary, after the disease also appeared in the southern part of Slovakia.
Foot-and-mouth disease poses no danger to humans but causes fever and mouth blisters in cloven-hoofed ruminants such as cattle, swine, sheep and goats, and outbreaks often lead to trade restrictions.
Gulyas told reporters that no fresh outbreak has been detected, and authorities are continuously taking samples.
He said strict measures and restrictions applied by authorities must be observed to contain the disease.
(Reporting by Krisztina Than and Anita Komuves, Editing by Louise Heavens, Elaine Hardcastle)
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