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Foot and Mouth Symptoms and causes Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a disease, which causes fever, followed by the development of blisters- chiefly in the mouth and on the feet. The disease is caused by a virus; FMD is probably more infectious than any other disease affecting man or animals and spreads rapidly if uncontrolled. Susceptable animals• Cattle & Sheep • Pigs & Goats • Deer Elephants, hedgehogs, rats and any wild cloven-footed animals can also contract it. FMD is prevalent in parts of Asia, Africa, the Middle East and South America, with sporadic outbreaks in disease-free areas such as the UK. Effects Foot-and-mouth disease is rarely fatal, except in the case of very young animals, which may die without showing any symptoms. In very rare exceptions, a severe form of the disease may cause sudden death in older animal stock. Other effects • reduction in the milk yield in a dairy herd • Mastitis may develop and in some cases chronic heart disease occurs. • Blisters on animals feet burst are likely to become infected; this may lead to lameness and loss of a hoof. Infection and contamination The virus is present in the fluid from the blisters, and it can also occur in the saliva, milk and dung. Heat, sunlight and disinfectants will destroy the virus, whereas cold and darkness tend to keep it alive. Airborne spread of the virus can take place and the disease may be spread several miles by this route. Animals pick up the virus either by direct contact with an infected animal, by contact with foodstuffs or other things which have been contaminated by such an animal, or by eating or coming into contact with some part of an infected carcase. Foot-and-mouth disease is extremely infectious. Trucks, market places, and loading ramps - in or over which infected animals have travelled - are dangerous until disinfected. Roads may also become contaminated, and the virus may be carried on the wheels of passing vehicles. Stockmen who have attended diseased animals can spread the disease from their clothes. Dogs, cats, poultry, wild game and vermin may also carry infection. Bluetongue What is Bluetongue? The disease is caused by a virus and spread by biting midges. It is not infectious from animal to animal but depends upon the insect vector to transmit the virus from one animal to another in much the same way as malaria is transmitted from person to person. Of the domestic animals, sheep are the most seriously affected, Signs include swelling of the head, high fever, nasal discharge, lameness, pneumonia and 1 document1 interference with the blood supply to the tongue and lips, which turn blue or even black. How does Bluetongue affect deer? The susceptibility of deer depends on the species exposed as well as being dependent on the strain of the disease (there are 24 individual types worldwide) Red deer, sika, fallow are only slightly affected by the disease (much like cattle) These species of deer may however act as a reservoir for the disease and when infected multiply the virus without clinical signs. White tailed deer have suffered large scale die offs in the US as a result of exposure to Bluetongue strain BTV 17. In 2007 there was a Bluetongue outbreak in the UK. The most likely source for this strain being brought the UK was by infected midges blown across from the Low Countries. In Europe where the BTV8 strain has been circulating for some years, monitoring in Germany and Belgium has confirmed that red, roe and fallow have been exposed to the virus however only 1 red deer and 1 fallow deer showed very mild clinical symptoms (mouth lesions). The European situation is very different to the US situation where Bluetongue 17 outbreaks have occurred as well as outbreaks of Epizootic Haemorrhagic Disease [EHD] a disease whose clinical symptoms closely mirror that of Bluetongue. 2 document1