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No Risk To Human Health From Foot And Mouth Disease - HPA

Author: HPA
Posted: Saturday 4th August, 2007. 00:00:00

HPA Press Statement on Foot and Mouth Disease

There is no risk to human health from foot and mouth disease.

The Food Standards Agency advises that foot and mouth disease has no implications for the human food chain and that there are no reports of infection from pasteurised milk

Foot and mouth disease should not be confused with the human condition 'hand foot and mouth'. This is an unrelated and usually mild viral infection principally affecting children and due to an entirely different virus.

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a highly infectious viral disease of cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, other farmed mammals and wild ruminants, and is one of the most important diseases of livestock. Very few human infections have ever been described, despite regular exposure of humans to infections in livestock throughout the world. Cases that have been reported have been mild and self-limiting, no human to human transmission has ever been reported, and FMD is not transmitted to humans through the food chain. FMD is therefore not a public health threat.

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