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Movement Of Goats And Sheep Banned In Greece Due To ‘goat Plague’

Movement of goats and sheep banned in Greece due to ‘goat plague’

By Elizabeth Schroeder | 2 August 2024 | 3:00 pm

The authorities in Greece have imposed a ban on the movement of sheep and goats from farms in an attempt to contain an outbreak of peste des petits ruminants (PPR).

This was according to Georgios Stratakos, a senior agriculture ministry official, who told Reuters that approximately 8 000 animals had been culled and more than 200 000 tested, mainly in the central Thessaly region where authorities first detected the outbreak on 11 July.

The virus, commonly known as ‘goat plague’, did not affect humans, but was highly contagious in goat and sheep populations, with a mortality rate of up to 70% of those infected, the report said.

The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) said on its website that “PPR was caused by a morbillivirus closely related to the rinderpest virus, and affected goats, sheep, and some wild relatives of domesticated small ruminants, as well as camels”.

“It is characterised by severe morbidity and mortality rates and has a high economic impact in areas of Africa, the Middle East, and Asia, where small ruminants contribute to guaranteeing livelihoods,” according to the WOAH.

The Greek agriculture ministry said in a statement on 29 July that a further two cases had been detected on farms in the central Larissa region, as well as in the southern area of Corinth the previous weekend.

“ightening the security measures across the country is deemed necessary for preventive reasons and is aimed at limiting the spread and eradicating the disease,” the statement added.

According to Reuters, PPR was first described in Côte d’Ivoire in 1942, and had since spread around the world.

In data released by the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization, it was estimated that the disease resulted in losses of up to US$2,1 billion (about R38 billion) globally every year.

Stratakos sad in the statement that Greece had the largest goat population in Europe, with their milk “used in Greece’s trademark feta cheese, [which] is a major economic driver”.

EU protocols required that an entire flock be culled once a case was detected. It further stipulated that the affected farm be disinfected, while animals in nearby areas had to be tested for the disease by the authorities.

The agriculture ministry statement further stated that Greece was continuing the epidemiological analysis of the cases and the route of “possibly suspect imports” to determine the source of the outbreak.