Abstract:
Foot and mouth disease (FMD), world’s most important highly infectious and contagious trans-boundary
animal diseases, is responsible for huge global losses of livestock production as well as severe impacts
on international trade. This vesicular disease is caused by foot and mouth disease virus of the genus
Aphthovirus, family Picornaviridae. Currently FMD is major global animal health problem and endemic
in Africa including Ethiopia. This paper systematically reviewed the sero-prevalence reports, associated
risk factors and distribution of FMD in Ethiopia with the main aim of making compressive document
on prevalence, risk factor and distribution of the disease thus helping as a basis for designing effective
control strategies. FMD is widely distributed in Ethiopia and its prevalence varies from place to place with
seropositivity that ranges from 5.6% to 42.7% in cattle and from 4% to 11% in small ruminant and in 30% in
ungulate wildlife. In Ethiopia endemic distributions of five of seven serotypes, namely serotypes O, A, C,
SAT1 and SAT2 have been documented. The dominant serotype being reported recently is serotype O and
serotype C has not been reported in the country since 1983. However, serotype C specific antibody was
detected in cattle indicating that circulation of serotype C viruses in the country may have gone unnoticed.
The most common risk factor associated with FMD infection in Ethiopia includes production system,
geographic location, species, age of animals, contact with wildlife and season of the year, mixed animal
species and Breed. Conclusively, this paper revealed as FMD is posing a major threat in different area
of the country thereby causing substantial economic losses through morbidity, mortality and restriction
of international trade. Thus, demanding for great attention as its occurrence is may affect the export
earnings of the country thereby threaten the livelihood of farmers and economy of the country at large.
