ABSTRACT
Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) virus is transmitted not only by contact between live animals but also survives in products, tissues, organs, glands, secretions, bone marrow, and may also be conveyed by clothing, hay or equipment that has been in contact with animals affected by the disease. For those reasons, countries with efficient livestock production practices and which are free from FMD, place severe restrictions on animal related imports to prevent FMD from gaining access to their livestock populations. Both Kenya and Botswana have demonstrated that FMD can be managed under African conditions given the political incentive of the national government to provide the legal enforcement necessary to carry out regulation of animal movement. Vaccine is used to maintain a barrier of protected animals inhibiting the movement of virus in animal populations, and is applied only in regions that are adjacent to what has been legally designated as an FMD-free zone in which the totally susceptible animals are maintained.
