More animals across U.S. being tested for foot-and-mouth

RALEIGH, North Carolina (CNN) -- Precautionary tests of U.S. farm animals for foot-and-mouth disease have increased in recent weeks amid concern that an outbreak in Europe might spread, federal and state agriculture officials said Friday.

All results of the routine testing were negative, officials said.

The testing was being done mostly without fanfare until Friday, when reporters in North Carolina found out about tests being done on two hogs found dead in a pen at a packing company in the northeastern part of the state.

News media interest sparked by the report became so intense that the North Carolina state veterinarian, David T. Marshall, called a press conference to explain that the testing was routine.

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"We're going to err on the side of caution," he told reporters. "If we confirm foot-and-mouth, you'll be the first to know."

Marshall said other animals in the state have been and are being tested, and he cited similar tests in recent weeks on animals from Idaho, Virginia and elsewhere.

An official with Animal and Plant Health Inspection Services, an arm of the U.S. Agriculture Department, confirmed to CNN that the number of tests has risen in response to an outbreak of the disease in Britain. Isolated cases also have been found in the Netherlands, Ireland and France, and the United States has banned import of animals and animal products from the European Union as a precaution.

No case of foot-and-mouth has occurred in the United States since 1929.

North Carolina and other states are urging animal handlers to be aggressive in reporting any signs of possible symptoms of the disease, which are similar to those of other diseases infecting farm animals. Foot-and-mouth symptoms include fever and blister-like lesions followed by erosions on the tongue and lips, in the mouth and between the hooves.

U.S. Agriculture Department chief veterinary officer Alfonso Torres said precautionary testing is considered routine, and in a normal year about 100 samples are sent to the federal lab at Plum Island, New York. Such tests are conducted on suspicion of any of about a dozen diseases.

Foot-and-mouth disease -- which can spread rapidly among hogs, cows and sheep -- does not pose a risk to humans.

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North Carolina Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services
United States Department of Agriculture

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