The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) are joining forces to draw up a detailed strategy to combat foot and mouth disease (FMD) on a global scale.

“Recent FMD outbreaks around the globe demonstrate that animal diseases have no boundaries, can have a devastating impact and require a global response,” said Hiroyuki Konuma, the FAO’s regional representative for Asia and the Pacific at the event.

OIE director general, Bernard Vallat, said that an important part of the strategy would be to strengthen veterinary services responsible for animal disease control. “Positive effects of the strategy will extend far beyond the control of FMD because it represents an opportunity to initiate long-term actions that will enhance veterinary services’ capacity to fight other high-impact diseases of livestock,” he said.

The global annual cost of FMD in terms of production losses and the need for prevention by vaccination has been estimated to be approximately $5 billion, the organisations said, but it pointed out that the severe outbreak that occurred in 2001 in the United Kingdom had “direct and indirect impacts” estimated to have cost as much as $30 billion.