Foot-and-Mouth Disease : Infection and Transmission

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious disease of cloven hoofed livestock animals such as cattle and pigs. Since the FMD is endemic in many Asian countries, Japan always faces the threat of FMD invasion from nearby countries. Therefore, preventive measures against introduction of FMD agents via animals and animal products imported from affected countries should be adequately conducted. In addition, when the outbreak occurred, strict control measures such as prompt destruction of animals in the affected farms and movement restriction in the surrounding farms should be implemented. Although these control measures should be based on the recent scientific knowledge, these knowledge are in many different literatures and finding suitable information in a short occasion is always difficult. In this review, we tried to present the resent knowledge found in scientific papers regarding the feature of FMD virus, symptoms found in infected animals and various routes of infection. In addition, we discussed current strategies taken in Japan and pointed out some issues worth to be considered for improvement of these strategies in future.