Home

Background

Statistics

Projects

Forum

Contacts

News

Arab Republic of Egypt
Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation
General Organization for Veterinary Services

Epidemiology Planning Unit

Foot and Mouth Disease “FMD”

Document Prepared By EPU:

  • Dr. Amira Kamal
  • Dr. Ibrahim Elbindary
  • Dr. Salah Mahrous
  • Dr. Hassan Ibrahim
  • Dr. Sherine Galal

Revised By:
Dr. Moustafa Osman Ramadan
General Director of Preventive Medicine
Supervisor of Epidemiology Planning Unit

Supervised by:
Prof. Dr. M. S. Soliman
Supervisor of GOVS
Vice President of Cairo University

 

Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD)

History of FMD disease in Egypt

Foot and mouth disease (FMD), one of the most wide spread diseases affecting cloven-footed animals, It has a detrimental effects on meat and milk production.

  1. FMD was first detected in 1950 when strain SAT2 caused an outbreak, then in 1952, 1956 and 1958 when outbreaks were caused by strain A. Several foci were detected in years 1961, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, and 1970. No other strains of FMD other than O have been detected since 1970. Regularly, several foci have been recorded from 1970 - 1997 and all infections were caused by strain O1 as shown in the following table.

No of foci of FMD recorded in Egypt since 1950 till 1997

Year

No of foci

No of cases

1950

1

  

1952

1

  

1956

1

  

1958

1

  

1961

  

265

1962

  

1004

1964

  

19082

1965

  

392

1966

1

65

1967

  

1165

1968

3

  

1969

5

  

1970

15

  

1971

17

  

1972

4

  

1973

14

  

1974

29

  

1975

4

3073

1976

23

3117

1977

5

167

1979

51

51

1980

34

34

1981

15

266

1982

7

  

1987

34

  

1990

9

  

1991

35

  

1992

25

  

1993

22

  

1994

2

  

1997

5

  

Control of the disease in Egypt

  1. First barrier System:

The Quarantine measures:

Importation of live animals or their products is subjected to notification and in accordance with the OIE recommendation to prevent the introduction of the disease into Egypt.

    1. Egypt prohibits the importation of living host range animals or transit passing specially wild or domestic large and small ruminants except from countries or zones free from FMD at least 6 Months before importation. The same restriction is applied for the importation of deboned fresh frozen meat

    2. The imported animals are kept under quarantine for 33 days before released and during this period they are vaccinated against FMD O1 strain.

  1. Second Barrier system:

    1. Vaccination:

    1. The policy of vaccination in Egypt is still implemented using locally prepared standardized inactivated FMD vaccine O1 strain for dairy animals every 4 months and fattening steers every 6 months. Our national laboratory started producing FMD vaccine using Ethylene-imine inactivator instead of formalin in 1992. We hope shortly to be able to produce an oily FMD vaccine, in order to vaccinate national herds including pigs once a year.

    1. Surveillance:-

    1. Clinical surveillance:

All the veterinarians distributed country-wide investigate thoroughly living animals in “veterinary clinics, AI centers, markets, slaughter houses/points, quarantine stations, vaccination campaigns”. They notify ad-hoc any abnormality phenomenon in the animals to the veterinary authority of the districts, centers, governorates, GOVS HQ.

Immediately a joint committee GOVS-AHRI investigates the suspected case epidemiologically, clinically, P.M lesions, taking the necessary samples for Lab. examination to reach the necessary decision to control and/or eradicate the case. If the case belongs to any notifiable disease of OIE list A or B, GOVS notifies the international (OIE, WHO, FAO) and regional organizations (IBAR, MERC).

In case of infected farms they must be kept under quarantine for 21 days after the recovery of the last infected cases and all animals in contact and in surrounding areas must be vaccinated.

    1. Sero Surveillance:

    1. It includes

    1. Field collection of serum samples, preparation and lab. dispatch

    2. Laboratory analysis

    3. Interpretation of lab. Results

    1. To assess the immune status of animals after vaccination campaigns for FMD. About 5000 samples are collected semi-annually “table No 2”. The lab results were analysed at EPU-GOVS. The lack of immune barriers within the host range animals is compensated by revaccination of low immune level animals.

    1. Sanitary measures:

To reduce microbial pressure on herds.

    1. Hygienic disposal of carcasses and disinfecting all premises using Formaline 1%-2% or fumigation, Sodium Carbonate 4% or Sodium hydroxide 2%

    2. Disinfecting all used farm utensils, equipment.

    3. Hygienic disposal of animals wastes and contaminated ration.

 

Abbreviations

OIE Office international des epizooties

FAO Food and Agriculture Organization

WHO World Health Organization

MERC Middle East Regional Committee

EPU Epidemiology Planning Unit

GOVS General Organization for Veterinary Services

AHRI Animal Health Research Institute

FMD Foot and Mouth Disease

 

Table No “1”: Total No of vaccinated animals against FMD

From 1990 to 1998

Year

Cattle

Buffalo

Sheep

Goat

camel

Total

1990

2572170

2490030

1228853

41005

11

6.332.069

1991

2435848

2223265

1306607

208506

1348

6.175.574

1992

3025460

2542317

2032437

165565

1927

7.767.706

1993

2941157

2413309

1912368

178948

5771

7.451.553

1994

2765637

2425041

2302477

260542

22769

7.776.466

1995

3554219

3195755

3461471

313536

46158

10.571.139

1996

3703673

3533253

3575559

494728

90267

11.397.480

1997

4609987

4014706

4311909

850444

180626

13.967.672

1998

4929209

4022341

4929371

930633

128256

14939810

Table No “2”: Total No of collected serum samples for sero-surveillance for assessing the Immune status of vaccinated animals against FMD From 1995 to 1998

Year

Total sample

Protected

Non protected

% protection

1995

4620

2727

1893

59%

1996

2520

2407

113

95.5%

1997

5037

4355

692

86.4%

1998

5112

4401

711

86.1%