The highly contagious Peste des Petits Ruminants (PPR)—commonly known as ovine rinderpest or small ruminant plague—has aggressively expanded its footprint in northern Albania. Local veterinary officials confirmed Wednesday that a second livestock farm has tested positive for the virus in the village of Mali i Gjymtit, located within the Dajç administrative unit of Shkodra.
The rapid secondary outbreak comes less than 24 hours after containment teams culled and buried the first wave of infected sheep and goats on a neighboring property.
According to the Shkodra Regional Veterinary Service, the virus has now officially compromised two separate family farms situated just 40 meters apart. A total of 190 small ruminants have been flagged for absolute containment and will be systematically culled throughout the day in strict accordance with national emergency veterinary protocols.
[THE SHKODRA PPR CONTAINMENT MATRIX]
• Outbreak Epicenter: Mali i Gjymtit village, Dajç Unit, Shkodra.
• Total Culled Asset: Approx. 190 sheep and goats slated for immediate bio-burial.
• Origin Status: Unknown. Lack of movement logs has blinded initial tracing.
• Quarantine Zone: 3 km Absolute Protection Perimeter; 10 km Active Surveillance Radius.
Unregistered Livestock Displacements Blind Source Tracing
Epidemiological teams from the National Veterinary and Plant Protection Authority admitting they face a significant hurdle: identifying the patient zero or initial source of the contagion has proven structurally impossible so far.
The investigation has run into a wall due to a severe deficit in domestic farming logs. The affected facilities lacked any traceable record of animal inflow or outflow, suggesting undocumented livestock transactions or cross-border movements may have introduced the pathogen into the Dajç region.
[CLINICAL SYMPTOMS WATCH: PPR]
Farmers are urged to immediately isolate and report small ruminants showing:
• Sudden high fever & acute respiratory distress.
• Severe, debilitating diarrhea.
• Visible erosive lesions and sores around the mouth and nose.
Strict Quarantine Levied Across the Region
In a direct bid to prevent the virus from mutating or spilling over into adjacent municipal territories, the Ministry of Agriculture has re-instituted strict quarantine protocols.
All livestock markets across the Shkodra circuit remain strictly closed until further notice. Furthermore, the transit of sheep and goats into public pastures, alternative holding facilities, or commercial trade corridors has been banned under a legally mandated 3-kilometer protection perimeter and an extended 10-kilometer active surveillance radius.
Local agricultural officials have issued a reassuring notice regarding financial recovery, clarifying that all registered and officially microchipped (matrikulluar) livestock lost to the culling process will be fully covered under the state’s emergency financial compensation scheme, as dictated by active national legislation.
Public health experts have explicitly reiterated that while PPR carries an exceptionally high mortality rate among small livestock, it is an entirely non-zoonotic disease—meaning it poses zero threat to human health and cannot be transmitted to humans.
