Foot and Mouth Disease - Uruguay

[grassfarmer]

Whaaaat F_S?? There is still not a shred of evidence to prove the Canadian BSE cases had anything to do with importing live cattle from Britain. What about the North African countries that imported thousands of tonnes of meat and bone meal from the Britain to feed their cattle through the 1980s before the BSE risk was known - they never had a case of BSE.
Importing beef from a foot and mouth infected country equally presents no real risk to our cattle population - even if you took your cows to M M meatshops to dine. There might be a theoretical risk if you feed restaurant waste containing beef scraps unprocessed to hogs but how many people do that in Canada? As long as we don't import live cattle from a F M zone.

[cowman]

I'm not real sure how foot and mouth is transferred but when Canada had a outbreak in 1952 they said it came in from a piece of sausage in the pocket of a German farm worker? That is what it states in Sherm Ewings book "The Ranch" and was a direct quote from Dr. Frank Mulhern, USDA?
I thought only cooked meat could come in from countries that have F & M? Like the canned stuff from Brazil? Is this not the case anymore?
This Dr. Mulhern seems to imply that the F&M virus can survive outside a host in the ground and infect cattle or pigs without contact from a host animal? Is this not correct?

[cowman]

Researched this a little further on the OIE site and they state FMD can be spread through the ground with equipment and also airborne up to 60 km!
Definitely can be spread through meat and infected humans, birds, rats, insects etc.!
Temperature kills the virus as does a certain level of PH. The virus can survive outside a living host for about a month.
Don't think we want to be messing around with this one?