What is Foot and Mouth Disease? 

FMD is a highly contagious viral disease of cattle, sheep, pigs, and other cloven-hoofed animals. It does not infect humans or pose a health and safety risk to humans, but it does cause significant economic losses for an affected country.   

The implementation of FMD measures causes the affected countries to lose access to both domestic and foreign meat and milk markets. Further measures can restrict products such as Products of Animal Origin (POAO), hay, straw, and treated animal pelts. It will be essential to understand what products will be restricted from those countries that have lost their FMD-free status. 

What is the impact on the import of live animals and meat products from Hungary into Great Britain?   

Confirmation of the Hungarian outbreak follows the confirmation of a German FMD outbreak announced in February.  Great Britain (England, Scotland, and Wales) has stopped the import of the following commodities to Great Britain from Hungary and Slovakia in addition to those measures applied to Germany last month:   

• live (including non-domestic) ungulates (ruminants and porcine animals, including wild game) and their germplasm   
• fresh meat from ungulates   
• meat products from ungulates that have not been subject to specific treatment D1, D, C or B (including wild game)   
• milk, colostrum and their products, unless subjected to treatment as defined in Article 4 of Regulation 2010/605   
• animal by-products, unless treated to effectively mitigate the risk of FMD   

The authorities of affected countries are investigating the source of the infections and have not yet confirmed whether they consider the outbreaks to be related. 

Definition of FMD-susceptible animals    

Defra recommends that compliance evidence should be in place for all commodities affected before a consignment reaches the border.   

It is also suggested that mixed consignments where some consignment products may be affected by the measure, be avoided to lower the risk of goods being held at the border.

A link to the updated DEFRA information page with specific details applied to Germany and Hungary and Slovakia is below: 

Imports, exports and EU trade of animals and animal products: topical issues - GOV.UK 

Regulatory Definitions: 

FMD-susceptible animals under the Foot and Mouth Disease (England) Order 2006 means “a cow, bull, sheep, goat, deer, camel, llama, alpaca, guanaco, vicuna, any other ruminant, any swine (that is, a member of the suborder Suina of the order Artiodactyla), elephant or rodent (other than a pet rodent)”.  

And under The Foot and Mouth Disease (Scotland) Order 2006 means “cattle, a sheep, goat, deer, camel, llama, alpaca, guanaco, vicuna, any other ruminant, any swine (that is, a member of the suborder Suina of the order Artiodactyla) or an elephant”.