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Trans-Baikal Territory lifts quarantine in regions bordering China

Rosselkhoznadzor called on heads of municipalities and farmers to take all necessary measures to prevent the spread of foot-and-mouth disease

CHITA, June 5 (Itar-Tass) - Russia’s Trans-Baikal Territory has lifted quarantine in regions bordering China over the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease last March.

“Nevertheless, sanitary and epidemiological restrictions to prevent the infection remained,” the deputy head of the region’s government, Gennady Chupin, told Itar-Tass.

According to the region’s agricultural watchdog, since the spring 2,071 cattle and 42 pigs have had the disease in the Trans-Baikal Territory.

“No cases of infection among humans and no loss of animals were registered,” the watchdog’s spokesperson, Elena Kulagina, said.

The foot-and-mouth disease virus was brought from China.

“The results of genetic typing of the virus in the infected cattle in Chinese provinces of Qinghai and Guangdong showed that it is a 99 percent match to the virus that later spread among cattle in the Trans-Baikal territory. This confirms the version that the disease was brought through the border to the territory of Russia,” the head of the region’s veterinary control unit, Alexander Razuvayev, said.

Rosselkhoznadzor called on heads of municipalities and farmers to take all necessary measures to prevent the spread of foot-and-mouth disease.