Poor biosafety practices regarding the movement of animals are behind the spread of foot-and-mouth disease into new areas, special scientific committee head Stavros Malas said on Monday.

Attending a meeting of the epidemiological group, Malas said the reasons for the virus reaching the Nicosia district remained unclear but that early indications pointed to negligence in animal handling.

“When you move lambs and goats and don’t do proper disinfection and you go and load piglets, leaving a small outbreak behind and you leave the problem behind. And piglets are more vulnerable,” he said.

Of approximately 490 units analysed, 101 have returned positive results.

“It’s close to 20-22%, it’s roughly the percentage we expected,” Malas said, adding that the way livestock areas had been organised “has created conditions so that the problem is worse than it should be.”

Malas was unequivocal on the question of restocking from abroad.

“The commission is only discussing the domestic market. We believe that the best way is to build livestock farming on the basis of local breeds, which are also more resilient,” he said.

Around half of Cyprus’s livestock farmers are not expected to rebuild their operations following the outbreak, according to Pancyprian pig farmers association president Petros Kailas, who told the Cyprus News Agency that many in the sector are reluctant to return.

“It is not easy to re-enter an industry where you do not know when you will face such outcomes again,” he said.

Kailas also raised concerns about the divergent disease management approaches on either side of the divide, warning that while the republic is pursuing elimination of the virus, Turkish Cypriot farmers are following a vaccination strategy and “will live with the virus.”

He described the two approaches as “completely different scenarios” and warned it was “only a matter of time” before the virus spreads again from the north.

On compensation, sheep and goat farmers’ coordinating committee spokesman Panikos Kaponas said only an initial payment of €20 per animal has been made, adding that “the matter has stalled at that point.”

A broader financial package of €28 million has been approved, with the veterinary services department confirming that farmers whose animals were culled before Easter have already received advance payments, while those culled after Easter will be paid in April.

Veterinary services have also defended the mandatory total culling policy, reiterating that EU regulation on foot-and-mouth disease, classified as a Category A disease, does not permit exceptions.

“Universal culling is not an option, but a legal obligation, which applies to all farm animals and not just those with positive clinical or laboratory findings,” the department stated.