Epidemiology and diagnosis of foot-and-mouth disease: A review

Abstract

Foot-and-mouth disease, the most devastating and highly contagious viral disease of cloven-footed animals, causes significant financial losses either due to deaths of young animals, loss of milk, meat and drastic fall in productive performances or serious limitations on development of livestock industry due to restrictions on international trade. In spite of the considerable information accumulated in the last years on the disease, it still affects extensive areas of the world and ranks as first in the list ‘A’ of infectious diseases of animals according to the Office International des Epizooties, Perris, France. In this review, we have to summarize the state of knowledge in basic and applied areas of FMD research with emphasis on epidemiology and diagnosis to make progress in controlling the disease from the livestock.