Better understanding of foot-and-mouth disease offers potential for alternatives to culling
IAH and collaborators in the University of Edinburgh have uncovered a window of opportunity when it is possible to identify cattle infected with foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) before they become infectious and/or show signs of having the disease. They have published their findings in the journal Science*. IAH experts along with colleagues at Defra (Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs) are now assessing if this window of opportunity can be exploited to reduce the number of animals that are culled during an outbreak.