Foot-and-mouth disease

Abstract

Foot-and-mouth disease remains one of the most feared viral diseases affecting cloven-hoofed animals such as cattle, pigs, sheep and goats. The disease has been successfully eradicated from some regions like North America, Western Europe and Australia, but it is still endemic in most of the world. Although mortality is generally low in adult animals, outbreaks result in devastating economic consequences due to production losses and a major constraint to international trade of live animals and their products. Immunization with the current inactivated vaccine has been successfully used in many parts of the world. However, its production process requires the growth of large amounts of infectious virus in high-level bio-containment facilities, which is not only very expensive but carries the risk of escape of live virus during vaccine manufacture and/or incomplete inactivation. Because of these hazards and other limitations, such as thermal instability, short duration of immunity and lack of cross protection, intense research focused on the design of improved vaccines, has been developed. Important issues concerning foot-and-mouth disease occurrence, pathogenesis and vaccine development, are reviewed in this chapter.