FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 December 1938, Page 3

FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE

HEAVY LOSSES IN ERUOPE. BRITAIN ESCAPES LIGHTLY. Every country in ’ Western Europe suffered more or less severely from the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak, which began about the middle of 1937 and persisted until the middle of this year. According to extracts in the “Farmer and Settler” (England), from an article in the monthly Bulletin of the International Institute of Agriculture Jn Rome, the disease is still spreading towards the east, the north, and the south-east of the Continent. In the middle of 1938 Germany was the country where the infection was most widespread, and there were no signs of any slackening in its intensity there. In Belgium, Great Britain, and Switzerland the decline has been fairly slow. A considerable increase has occurred in Germany, Poland and Czechoslovakia, and the contagion reached Austria, Hungary, Sweden, Portugal, and the Free City of Danzig. At the end of 1937 in France 121,711 farms were infected. This was the peak period, although there have been many fresh outbreaks since May. By the end of February, 1938, more than 2.000,000 cattle, more than 1,000,000 sheep and goats, and more than 500,000 pigs had been attacked, and enormous financial losses, met to some extent by government grants for' compensation, have been incurred by farmers. Losses of stock due to the disease in Holland between September, 1937, and June, 1938, were 10,553 animals in all. In Germany the full force of the epidemic was not felt until the middle of this year, when 138,446 farms were infected out of 750,000 farms for the whole country. The losses at the end of February, even before the epidemic had reached its height, had represented 250,000,000 marks. All this throws into strong relief the relatively small figures of the United Kingdom. In 1937 187 centres were affected, and in the first half of 1938, 155. For the whole period about 50,000 animate were slaughtered, and the amount of compensation paid was about £250,000.