Authorities in the Moscow region have imposed a quarantine after lumpy skin disease was found in cattle in several towns and villages about 25 km from the Russian capital, according to a document on the regional government's website reported by Reuters. The order bans transport of cattle, cattle products including milk, and feed to and from the quarantined area, and bans agricultural fairs there.

Lumpy skin disease is a viral infection of cattle spread mainly by biting insects. It causes fever and painful skin nodules, weakens animals and cuts milk yield; it does not infect people.

Earlier in the week the Irkutsk region near Lake Baikal in Siberia declared a lumpy skin disease quarantine in two settlements and said infected animals would be culled. In spring an outbreak of cattle disease in Siberia, officially identified as pasteurellosis or rabies, led to mass culling and to rare protests by local farmers.

The disease, long established in North Africa, reached several European countries last year; in France the authorities ordered infected cows culled, prompting protests from farm unions.

For a dairy and beef region on the capital's doorstep the movement ban is the immediate cost — milk cannot leave the zone — while the wider question is how far the vector-borne virus has spread across Russia's cattle belt before the season's first frosts end insect activity.

Source: The Cattle Site, citing Reuters