Prevention measures against foot-and-mouth disease in Europe in recent years.

The paper describes the situation of foot-and-mouth disease in Europe over the past 2 years and analyses the origin of the disease during the last decades. Preventive vaccination has been banned in Europe in the early nineties. Since then, despite several incursion of the virus, the disease has always been rapidly contained and eradicated. Therefore the ban on vaccination did not result in an increase of FMD outbreaks. Based on the recent source of introduction of the virus, the author reviews the lines of defence which should be reinforced to reduce the risk of further introduction of the disease.