On Thursday, 3 April the Interior Ministry of the Central European country of Austria announced that it is closing down 23 of its border crossings with Slovakia and Hungary. The measure comes in response to the recent spread of foot-and-mouth disease among the two neighbouring countries’ livestock.

Meanwhile, Hungary is deploying its Defence Forces to conduct disinfection operations on all vehicles crossing its borders from Austria and Slovakia. These so-called ‘disinfection points’ are implemented at all border crossing checkpoints across a 160-kilometre (99-mile) long line between the village of Rajka to the city of Esztergom.

Due to the spread of the livestock disease, Slovakia has even declared a national state of emergency.

According to the reporting by Reuters, this is the first significant outbreak of the foot-and-mouth disease in Hungary in 50 years. It also notes that the disease poses no danger to humans, and it mainly affects cattle and other cloven-hoofed mammals. However, a pandemic could lead to a high number of deaths in livestock, which, in turn, would lead to a shortage in meat and milk, hence the high level of response from the affected countries.

Minister of Agriculture István Nagy of Hungary has shared in a Facebook video posted on 3 April that so far, the disease had only been detected in four farms in Hungary at the time.

‘These facilities and their vicinity have been closed down and we have established disinfection points. The infected animals will be slaughtered, and we are continuously monitoring the spread of the disease…We have decided on new measures as well. We have prohibited the transport of cloven-hoofed animals from foreign countries through Győr–Moson–Sopron County,’ Minister Nagy informed all.

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