Brazil Locates Three More Foot and Mouth Outbreaks

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QUARAI, Brazil (Reuters) - Brazil said on Sunday it has located three more outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease and the authorities prepared to slaughter herds of animals as the country battles to contain the highly contagious scourge.

The new cases bring to eight the number of foot-and-mouth outbreaks confirmed in Brazil's southernmost state of Rio Grande do Sul this month. All the outbreaks were in towns in the same region, near the country's border with Uruguay.

Officials prepared to start killing herds of cattle and to bury the carcasses in deep pits while military police stepped up border patrols to try and contain the spread of the disease, which causes fever and blisters on cattle and other cloven-hoofed animals.

``We are only going to kill the infected animals,'' said Fatima Brandisire, deputy head of the state agricultural secretariat's animal production department, on a visit to an infected farm.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), May 20, 2001


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