World meat industry news

At the moment, Russia maintains a safe status for foot-and-mouth disease, but this may change in 2024. Experts fear that foot-and-mouth disease and other exotic diseases could be brought to Russia via supplies of genetic material, as well as blood-sucking insects from other regions.

Candidate of Veterinary Sciences Ilya Chvala, Deputy Director for Research at the Federal Center for Animal Health Protection (FSBI “ARRIAH” of Rosselkhoznadzor) in an interview with “Veterinary Medicine and Life” commented on the prospects for biosafety and the epizootic situation in 2024. Russia has learned to combat the spread of diseases and minimize damage from diseases, but risks remain in the supply of livestock products from abroad, the report says.

Thus, among the possible ways of spreading diseases, the expert named genetic material, feed components, medicines and equipment for livestock farming. Thus, for example, new strains of foot-and-mouth disease from the southern regions may enter Russia. To ensure safety against this disease, the competent departments have strengthened controls at the border and also released a vaccine that will help cope with the virus if it enters the country - in total there are more than 1 million doses of the vaccine in stock.

The expert considers climate change, which leads to changes in the habitats of blood-sucking insects, to be another risk. Warming means these insects can breed in greater numbers and head to regions that were previously too cold for them, including Russia. This way, exotic diseases such as Congo-Crimean hemorrhagic fever, West Nile fever, dengue and others, dangerous for both animals and humans, can enter the country.