Pest of the little ruminants: shock wave in Austria!

Pest of the little ruminants: shock wave in Austria!

Niederösterreich, Österreich - Austria is faced with a devastating animal disease thanks to the imported sheep from Romania. The highly contagious "plague of the little ruminants" has now also reached the country, which not only has devastating consequences for the goat and sheep stocks, but also rings the alarm bells with animal rights activists. The 90 to 100 percent mortality rate are threatening, as the Ages confirmed. The first outbreaks were already documented 24 kilometers behind the border in Hungary.

After the sick sheep in a slaughterhouse in Lower Austria were tested positively for the disease, all animals of this delivery, even the healthy ones, had to be killed. As an immediate reaction, the Austrian government issued an import ban for small ruminants from Romania and Hungary. This happened in the hope of stopping the spread of this plague, which is spread primarily through direct contact between animals or their excretions, as reported in detail by kosmo.at .

urgent appeal

animal welfare organizations demand an end to the problematic animal transport from these countries in order to banish the risk of further outbursts. "The risk of spreading such infectious diseases is a danger that is also not portable from an animal welfare perspective," confirmed GDR. Martin Balluch from the club against animal factories and calls the situation a "catastrophe" for the animals. As a consequence, it is unclear whether Austria will increasingly import sheep from other countries affected by PPR, such as Bulgaria or Greece, which could further aggravate the already tense situation, emphasizes Today.at .

experts now face the challenge of clarifying possible further risks through imports in the past. Questions about deliveries already made from these risk countries throw a light on the urgency of the situation. Thanks to a long confidentiality of the incident, the public remains largely uninformed, while time is urged to take measures as quickly as possible and prevent further animal suffering.