WASHINGTON – According to a new study by the US Department of Agriculture, scientists have identified where the virus that causes foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) begins its infection in cattle, which may lead to the development of new vaccines, the American Meat Instituted relays.

After just six hours of exposure to the FMD virus through the cow’s nasal passages, the virus selectively infects epithelial cells in the nasopharynx, a specific region of the cow’s throat, researchers found. The discovery was made by scientists with the Agricultural Research Service Foreign Animal Disease Research Unit at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center at Orient Point, N.Y.


The research was published in the November issue of Veterinary Pathology and featured on the cover of that issue.

For more information, visit:http://vet.sagepub.com/content/47/6/1048.abstract.