Bulgaria Considers Border Fence with Turkey Over FMD

Head of State Veterinary Public Health Control Directorate Yordan Voynov during a press conference on FMD on Monday. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria will demand financial support from the European Commission to rebuild its border fence with Turkey due to the danger of animals spreading foot-and-mouth disease (FMD).

This was announced on Monday by the Head of State Veterinary Public Health Control Directorate Yordan Voynov on Monday.

"It is otherwise impossible to follow each wild or domestic animal passing through the border," Voynov has explained.

Some 29 km of the 143 km Bulgarian-Turkish border are currently covered with a fence. The cost for the rest may be initially paid by the state budget and subsequently reimbursed by the EU.

Meanwhile, experts from Brussels visited Bulgaria Monday over the spread of FDM

Some of the results from the FDM tests from animals in the village of Rezovo, which is near Bulgaria's border with Turkey, have turned out positive. Around 200 cows, sheep and pigs will be slaughtered. Their owners will be fully compensated.

The FMD outbreak in Bulgaria started in the beginning of January after a wild boar, shot by hunters near the Turkish border at the end of 2010 in Bulgaria, tested positive. The EU implemented urgent protection measures.

Affected livestock has up to now only been found in two villages in the southeastern Burgas region .

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