Foot-and-Mouth Disease

Foot-and-Mouth Disease ( Aphtae epizooticae )

Livestock is affected by Foot-and-Mouth Disease; cows, pigs, sheep and llamas. [1].

Baltimore Classification

Group IV. Positive single-stranded RNA (picornavirus)

Higher order categories

Order Picrnovirales
Family Picornaviridae
Genus Aphthovirus
Species Bovine rhinitis virus

Description and Significance

This aphthovirus can survive a range of conditions outside of a host cell. It can persist in below-freezing temperatures as well as through the high temperatures of pasteurization, making the eradication of this virus in a cattle population and throughout its byproducts very difficult. Herds are quickly affected to FMD due to their close contact with each other and materials that carry the virus. Cloven-hoofed livestock such as cows, pigs, sheep, goats, and sometimes llama and aplaca herds are the most often affected animals. Outbreaks of FMD have not occurred in the United States since the late 1920's but Asia, Africa, and regions in the Middle East still suffer.
It's highly contagious nature as well as it's relation to the human-affecting enterovirus that causes hand, foot, and mouth disease make it a model virus to study.

References

Example: Weir, Jerry P. " Genomic Organization and Evolution of the Human Herpesviruses." Virus Genes 16.1 (1998): 85-93.

Page authored for BIOL 375 Virology, September 2012