Health No animal holiday souvenirs

No animal holiday souvenirs: diseases do not stop at borders

If you bring a souvenir from your holiday, you will make friends and family leftover happy. With culinary delicacies, however, caution is warranted, warns the Federal Chamber of Veterinary Medicine.

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Animal food from non-EU countries can be transmitted to Germany via animal food. Therefore, meat, sausages, milk and their products must not be imported into the European Union. Excluded are the countries of origin Andorra, Faroe Islands, Greenland, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, San Marino and Switzerland, if they are small quantities for personal use.

A current example of animal diseases is African swine fever in Eastern Europe. The pathogen is very resistant and remains infectious for weeks or even months. He can survive even in frozen, cured and smoked meats and sausages. Also on hunting trophies such as wild boar fishes the virus is introduced to other countries.

On highway rest stops and parking lots on highways, there is another problem: If travelers discard food and sausage carelessly, wild boars can eat these foods and possibly become infected with the pathogen. Therefore, leftovers always belong in a closed garbage container.

Epidemics lead to high animal losses: Even if only a few individuals are affected, usually the entire population must be killed. That means a lot of suffering for the animals and a big economic damage for the farmer. Heike Kreutz, aid