This review article formulates a strategic approach to evaluate foot-and-mouth disease risk for North America, especially the United States. A brief description of FMD epidemiology is given, followed by a summary of the locations of past primary foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks throughout the world by source. A qualitative approach is used to rank the possible modes of foot-and-mouth disease virus transmission by relative biologic hazard.

This is a review prepared by the EuFMD to summarise the factors involved in and the control of the foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks in Europe between 1937 and 1961.