Foot and Mouth disease

• Around 3,000 head of cattle have been affected by the outbreak in the district in the last one-and-a-half months in Kerala.
• The outbreak of the disease was attributed to missed rounds of vaccination due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Foot-and-Mouth disease

• It is an infectious and sometimes fatal viral disease.
• Affects cloven-hoofed animals, including domestic and wild bovids.

Symptoms:

• The virus causes a high fever for two or three days, followed by blisters inside the mouth and on the feet that may rupture and cause lameness.
• The virus responsible for the disease is a picornavirus, the prototypic member of the genus Aphthovirus.

• It can be spread by infected animals through aerosols, through contact with contaminated farming equipment, vehicles, clothing, or feed, and by domestic and wild predators.
• Humans can be infected with the foot-and-mouth disease through contact with infected animals, but this is extremely rare.