Residents of a village in Lebanon’s Bekaa valley discovered on Thursday the carcasses of nine cows suspected of having died from foot-and-mouth disease, The Daily Star reported Saturday.
The cows were found in a pasture in Bidnayel and are believed to have come from a neighboring farm, the Lebanese paper said, adding that the police arrested the farm’s owner, who was not identified.
The government imposed a quarantine on the remaining 87 cows in the farm to see if they are carrying the disease.
The head of the Lebanese Veterans Syndicate, Mansour Kassab, who also heads the Agriculture Ministry’s veteran section, was quoted by the daily as saying that the disease caused farmers up to $15 million annually.
Foot-and-mouth disease differs from Mad Cow disease, which can be passed to humans in the form of variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, a fatal, brain-wasting condition that has killed at least 85 people in Britain alone.
Foot-and-mouth disease has recently spread throughout Britain and is thought to have reached the European mainland.
Reports also said cases of the disease were discovered in Turkey – Albawaba.com
