Authorities on the eastern Aegean Sea island of Lesvos, that’s been hit by two different deadly livestock diseases, have arrested a shepherd for breaching restrictions on containing the epidemics, police said.
The suspect allegedly had allowed a flock of sheep he owns to graze in the open countryside near the island capital of Mytilini on Saturday, police said.
More than 120 people have been arrested since October for breaches of tight regulations designed to stop the spread of sheep and goat pox – that’s been coursing through the country since August 2024 – and foot-and-mouth disease that broke out on Lesvos in mid-March and so far has been contained to the island.
Authorities have ruled out vaccination as a way of stopping the epidemics, and instead insist on restrictions including not allowing livestock outdoors even to graze, while wherever an animal tests positive for the disease the entire flock is slaughtered.
So far, nearly half a million sheep and goats have been culled.
