Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a severe condition that poses significant challenges to the livestock industry, potentially leading to major health problems for animals. This disease can result in fever, lesions, and other complications, ultimately affecting the production of dairy and meat products.
In April 2025, an outbreak of FMD occurred in Hungary under unexplained circumstances. Thousands of farm animals in the village of Levél, Hungary, have been exposed to the disease. In response, Hungarian authorities have decided to cull over 3,000 infected animals and move their carcasses to a government-controlled area near the border with Austria, where they will be buried to prevent further spread of the disease.
This decision follows the identification of multiple FMD cases at a farm in Levél, aiming to contain the disease and prevent wider contamination. On Wednesday, April 3, 2025, Hungary’s Minister of Agriculture, István Nagy, announced that soldiers had been deployed, and new health measures were introduced to curb the spread of FMD in the northwestern region, which borders Slovakia and Austria.
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Minister Nagy further revealed that as of Wednesday morning, two additional farms in the GyÅ‘r-Moson-Sopron county had been affected, with a total of 3,500 animals impacted. “We are doing everything in our power to prevent any further outbreaks,” Nagy stated in a Facebook video.
This outbreak marks a troubling return of FMD to Central Europe, a region that had been free from the disease for over five decades. Earlier this year, in January 2025, Germany reported its first FMD case in a herd of buffalo in Brandenburg, near Berlin, which led to a ban on meat imports from the EU to Russia.
FMD has also been a persistent issue in South Africa since 2021, despite government efforts to contain it. The disease continues to spread in certain areas, and authorities in the KwaZulu-Natal province have raised concerns as the number of infected animals steadily increases. In late February 2025, the outbreak severely impacted the country’s livestock industry, exacerbating existing challenges for the sector.
Also, in Iran, the recent illegal import of meat from Pakistan has led to the emergence of new disease outbreaks in the country.
