Hungary is fighting foot-and-mouth disease. Again.
For the first time in over 50 years a case of foot-and-mouth disease was reported in March, discovered on a cattle farm near the border with Austria and Slovakia.
‘These things happen’, one may say. Or maybe, think that Hungarian health inspections and procedures were sub-par, leading to this.
Budapest has a different explanation: bioterrorism.
Reuters reported:
“Hungary on Thursday suggested a ‘biological attack’ as a possible source of the country’s first foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in more than half a century, which has triggered border closures and the mass slaughter of cattle in the northwest.”
Thousands of farm animals buried near the Austria-Hungary border due to a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in Levél. Swift action taken to contain the spread. #FootAndMouthDisease #Levél #AnimalHealth #AustriaHungary pic.twitter.com/3waelbESIx
— Dr. Subhash (@Subhash_LiveS) April 5, 2025
Animal health authorities inspected around 1,000 farms across Hungary today, with only four returning positive results, all in the in the previously affected northwestern region.
“’At this stage, we can say that it cannot be ruled out that the virus was not of natural origin, we may be dealing with an artificially engineered virus’, Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s chief of staff, Gergely Gulyas told a media briefing.
Responding to a question, Gulyas said he could not rule out that the virus outbreak was the result of a biological attack, without giving information on who might be responsible.”
A foot-and-mouth outbreak in Hungary that has caused border restrictions and the culling of thousands of animals could have come from an artificially engineered virus, the prime minister’s office has suggested https://t.co/Sl4mJxy5pE pic.twitter.com/ECPUdRY6ow
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 10, 2025
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