Research and analysis

3 April 2025: Risk of FMD virus spread from Hungary and Slovakia to Great Britain (executive summary)

Published 16 April 2025

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

Reference number: EU-IRA-FMD-2025

Date of risk assessment: 3 April 2025

Authors: Alex Royden, Dominika Serwin, Tahlia Preece, Helen Roberts and Catherine McCarthy

Please note this is the executive summary. To request the full risk assessment, please contact ukassurance@defra.gov.uk.

Introduction 

This summary outlines a rapid risk assessment which has been requested to consider the risk of FMD virus (FMDV) entering Great Britain due to the outbreaks of foot and mouth disease (FMD) in Hungary and Slovakia.  

It considers the risk that the virus will enter Great Britain over the next 3 months through the potential risk pathways. The risk is assessed as of 3 April 2025 when there have been 5 confirmed cases in Slovakia and 4 confirmed cases in Hungary of the same FMD viral strain, indicating local spread of the virus. The assessment considers that the risk associated with the single outbreak in Germany in January 2025 is no longer significant. However, it may be indicative of a general biosecurity issue in the eastern and central European Union (EU).  

Recent estimates suggest that the single case of FMD in buffalo in Germany in 2025 cost the German economy €1 billion. This includes both direct disease control costs and indirect costs through trade restrictions. This figure is expected to have been significantly higher if the disease had spread beyond the index case or if disease control took longer to implement or was less effective. The large-scale outbreak in Great Britain in 2001 is estimated to have cost £15 billion in current prices. This figure refers to direct disease control costs alone and does not include the significant costs due to loss of trade.   

Risk 

The risk that FMDV will enter Great Britain over the next 3 months was assessed as medium. This means that the virus is expected to enter Great Britain ‘regularly’ over the next 3 months. The risk of entry of FMDV was considered highest through commercial, personal or illegal trade in products of animal origin (POAO). Each of these routes had a medium risk (meaning that the virus is expected to enter Great Britain ‘regularly’ over the next 3 months through each of the commercial, personal and illegal trade routes).  

As FMD is highly transmissible (with an incubation period of between 2 to 14 days), a major concern is that the virus will spread to a free-area and subsequently spread to Great Britain before restrictions are implemented (so called ‘silent spread’ of the disease). Further cases, particularly additional member states being infected, or a change in the epidemiological situation such as evidence of disease in wild animals, would cause the risk to increase to ‘high’.  

It is likely that new cases will be detected in areas surrounding the current known cases in Europe despite restrictions in place as required by current EU legislation and any further country-level restrictions in Hungary and Slovakia. There is free movement of people, goods and vehicles across EU member states in unrestricted areas, and the possibility for wild animals (in particular, wild boar and deer) in the area to be infected.  

Depending on surveillance and veterinary capacity, early detection is difficult in wild animals and infection may be particularly challenging to control. The use of suppressive vaccination in affected regions is beneficial to disease control but may impact surveillance and, in a worst-case scenario, could result in delays to detecting disease spread.  

Given the possibility of human-mediated spread and wild animals being infected in the region and the frequency of new cases being reported to date, we cannot rule out the possibility of sudden wider geographical movements of the disease into new areas over the coming days and weeks. 

Great Britain’s top 5 EU trading partners for imports of products of animal origin (POAO) from susceptible species into GB are the Republic of Ireland, Netherlands, Germany, Poland and Denmark. Given the proximity to known outbreaks, a major concern is that the disease will spread undetected into Poland and subsequently spread to Great Britain through commercial, personal or illegal movement of POAO before the presence of disease is detected in Poland. Given the proximity of Czechia and Austria to known cases, disease spread into these 2 member states is also a possibility. However, it should be noted that restrictions are currently in place for Austria due to the proximity of the outbreaks to the Austrian border.  

A second major concern is the continued importation of high volumes of illegal POAO. Multiple safeguard measures have been implemented over the past 3 years including limiting the weight of meat or dairy products which can be transported in luggage or vehicles from the EU to 2kg of commercially produced, packaged and marked goods and banning the transport of these products from certain member states where animal diseases are present.  

Despite this, high volumes of illegal imports are still routinely seized (mean weight 158.30kg per seizure) at ports of entry such as Dover. The seized meat does not meet Great Britain’s import requirements. It frequently appears to be a product of home slaughter and, as such, is unlikely to have had veterinary oversight during production or been subject to official controls for example, ante- and postmortem inspection. In some cases, the meat seized has health marks which do not allow placing on the market beyond the EU. This meat also frequently arrives in a condition unsuitable for meat for human consumption, for example lack of cold chain or the packaging leaking.  

This is a major concern for spread of FMD (and other pathogens) into Great Britain. Defra is working closely with the Home Office and Border Force, Port Health Authorities, the Food Standards Agency and Local Authorities to tackle the issue of POAO smuggling. The current restrictions are complex, frequently updated, and therefore difficult to communicate, understand, follow and enforce. Introducing a straightforward ban on all meat and dairy products from the EU would provide a clear message and improve compliance with restrictions.  

Uncertainty 

There is a high level of uncertainty with the results of this risk assessment, meaning ‘further research is very likely to have an important impact on our confidence in the risk estimate’. There are major gaps in our epidemiological knowledge at the current time including: 

• very limited information and analysis on how the virus was introduced into the EU  

• the extent of the spread of the virus within the EU  

• whether the virus is currently in wild animals in the area 

• whether EU-wide movement restrictions will be put in place 

• whether measures at Great Britain’s borders will be sufficient to detect and prevent POAO being brought into Great Britain as illegal imports  

More information would greatly increase the confidence in the risk levels.  

Limitations 

This risk assessment considers the risk of the virus entering Great Britain over the next 3 months from either affected or currently unaffected EU member states, assuming the potential for silent spread within the region. It does not assess the risk from non-EU countries in the European region or from the rest of the world. It does not assess the risk that any susceptible species within Great Britain will be exposed to the virus and become infected, leading to a disease outbreak. Nor does it consider the consequences of the disease within Great Britain.  

This risk assessment should be updated regularly to monitor the changing risk to Great Britain. All assessments relate to the situation as of 3 April 2025 when there have been 5 confirmed cases in Slovakia and 4 cases in Hungary.