Livestock farmers in the area of Pachna, Limassol, are awaiting laboratory test results on Wednesday after an animal on a farm with 70 goats and sheep tested positive for foot and mouth disease.

Pachna community leader Andreas Savva said “a difficult day dawned” for the community and the broader region, causing concern among all farmers in the area, as it is the first case in the Limassol region.

Savva said the area had been cordoned off and the Veterinary Services were disinfecting vehicles.

“The Limassol veterinary service has five crews visiting the farms and a 3km-radius area has been isolated. In two or three days we will know what is happening with the surrounding farms,” he added.

Savva expressed hope that the disease had not spread to other farms in Pachna, adding that they were quite far apart from one another.

Farmer Costas Salatas, who said he had a thousand animals in his farm about 1km from the infected unit, wondered how the disease had reached there.

Salatas explained that the owner of the infected farm milked his own animals and no one was allowed in.

He added that his own sheep and goats, as well as those of most farmers in the area, had been administered both doses of the vaccine.

The Veterinary Service confirmed the first case of foot and mouth disease in the Limassol district on Tuesday. The outbreak in Pachna brings the total number of cases to 117, with four new cases confirmed in livestock units in Dromolaxia and Athienou over the weekend.

The Ecologists’ Movement in a statement on Wednesday expressed its “strong concern and disappointment” over the management of the FMD outbreak by the veterinary service.

It accused the authority of “failing miserably” to limit the spreading of the disease, highlighting the serious consequences for the local animal population and livestock farmers.