Foreign Office warns UK tourists face borders being 'closed' over outbreak
The Foreign Office has issued new details and "information added about the risk of delays at some road borders, due to extra checks following the recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease."
THe UK Foreign Office has warned UK tourists face "border closures" over the outbreak of a disease in the European Union. The Foreign Office has issued new details and "information added about the risk of delays at some road borders, due to extra checks following the recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease."
"There may be closures or delays at road borders with Austria and Slovakia due to extra checks that have been in place since 8 April 2025 to reduce the spread of foot and mouth disease," it said.
The outbreak was first detected on a cattle farm in northwestern Hungary in early March, and animals on three farms in neighboring Slovakia tested positive for the highly transmissible virus two weeks later.
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"Everything is completely upside down” in the area as farmers fear for their own herds and transportation is disrupted by border closures, said Sándor Szoboszla;.
“We didn’t even think such a thing could happen. Who could count on that? Nobody,” he said. “There are big farms in the area, but I don’t think it was the fault of the animal owners, that’s for sure. The wind blew it here.”
Jiri Cerny, associate professor at the Czech University of Life Sciences in Prague, said the most significant risk of transmission is “through contaminated human objects” such as ”tires and cars, on the soles of shoes, and through contaminated food.”
The Czech Agriculture Minister, Marek Výborný, has said the restrictions could be lifted 30 days after the last farm animal infected with foot-and-mouth disease has been culled in Slovakia.
Last week, a Hungarian official said in a news conference that the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak may have been caused by “an artificially produced virus."
Gergely Gulyás, chief of staff to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, said it couldn't be ruled out that the disease had been released in Hungary as a “biological attack."