The Structure and life-cycle of foot-and-mouth disease

FMD is a devastating disease of livestock. All species of cloven-hoofed animals are susceptible and the disease is extremely contagious. The disease is characterized by fever and blister-like lesions followed by erosions on the tongue and lips, in the mouth, on the teats and between the hooves. Many affected animals recover, but the disease leaves them debilitated.

The pain produced by the lesions inhibits eating and consequently results in severe losses in meat and milk production due to loss of weight, depression and lameness. Recovered animals normally do not regain lost weight for many months and cows rarely produce milk near their former rate of production. Lesions in the mouth cause

Legend: - The FMD virus is temperature sensitive and is rapidly inactivated at elevated temperatures. By burning the carcasses of the animals thought to have been infected, the virus is destroyed and therefore at no risk to the existing cloven-hoofed animal population. Mass incineration piles of carcasses were a common sight during the two major outbreaks of the disease in the 1900s. This is clearly a costly method of eradicating the disease, and owing to its air-born nature, is no guarantee of being successful. Should such mass slaughtering be ineffective at eliminating the disease, emergency vaccination is the last resort at combating the disease.

The use of Borax 30C was used with some considerable success during the 1967 outbreak. Applied as drops in the drinking water it helped prevent many farms becoming infected. Its specific action as a remedy is to encourage the excretion of poisons in sores and ulcers and strengthen the mucus forming glands. The recommendation is 5ml in drinking water trough daily for three days and then twice weekly for the duration of the outbreak. However, this treatment had little effect on the treatment of contaminated animals.

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