0103104 USDA: No Foot-and-Mouth Detected in U.S.March 31, 2001Washington - A U.S. Agriculture Department spokesman said that some pigs suspected of carrying the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease in a small town in North Carolina had tested negative. USDA spokesman Kevin Herglotz said that some pigs were quarantined at a farm in Robersonville, a small town in eastern North Carolina. Herglotz said blood samples were immediately taken by USDA officials and sent to a USDA laboratory in Plum Island, New York. On Thursday, the tests came back negative for foot-and-mouth disease. Herglotz said the United States remains free of the economically devastating foot-and-mouth disease. Foot-and-mouth disease cripples pigs, cattle, sheep and goats for months, and sharply reduces milk and meat production. The virus, which rarely endangers humans, can be spread via shoes and clothing. American officials have said that an outbreak in the United States, free of foot-and-mouth since 1929, could cause billions of dollars worth of losses to farmers. U.S. animal health inspectors and border patrols have been on heightened alert ever since the highly contagious disease jumped from Britain into France earlier this month. The disease has since spread to the Netherlands and Ireland. Argentina, Saudi Arabia and a number of other countries have also discovered cases of foot- and-mouth. In Chicago, live cattle and hog futures traded at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange fell sharply near midday in reaction to news of the suspected North Carolina case. Prices rebounded immediately after the USDA reported tests on the pigs came back negative. USDA officials say they routinely test some 400 animals per year for foot- and-mouth disease. “We take each case very seriously,” Herglotz said. “All the states are acting accordingly” and reporting any suspected cases of foot-and-mouth disease. Industry officials expect the number of U.S. livestock tested for the virus to escalate as the crippling disease spreads in Europe. Other recent foot-and-mouth investigation for foot-and-mouth disease include pigs with flu-like symptoms in Illinois and calves in Idaho. All tested negative. “All of those tests proved negative,” said Joe Annelli, chief of emergency programs at USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. “In fact similar tests have proved negative all the way back to 1929.”
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