Sutaj Estok: Slovakia to Shut Down 17 Border Crossings with Hungary

Bratislava, April 4 (TASR) - Slovakia will shut down 17 border crossings with Hungary due to the spreading contagion of the foot-and-mouth disease, Interior Minister Matus Sutaj Estok announced after a session of the crisis team on Friday. The border crossings to be closed are located in the Bratislava, Kosice and Banska Bystrica regions. The aim of the measures is to unburden the police corps and members of the Financial Administration, so that they won't have to patrol the border crossings. In addition, the Interior Ministry will launch random inspections of farms, conducted also with the use of drones. "I'd like to urge all food producers to comply with the measures... We must do our utmost to be able to check the efficiency of our measures, which is why we're shutting down the borders, so as to free up the police for domestic inspections," said Sutaj Estok. He noted that the situation is serious and Slovakia might face the risk of the contagion spreading also to other regions, which would pose an even larger drain on resources and require deployment of more personnel. The presence of foot-and-mouth disease has been confirmed at six farms in southern and western Slovakia - in Medvedov, Narad, Baka, Luc na Ostrove, Plavecky Stvrtok and Jurova. mf