Germany has no new cases of the livestock illness foot-and-mouth disease with a suspect case on Thursday not confirmed, German agriculture minister Cem Oezdemir said on German radio on Friday.

PARIS (Reuters) - France has reinforced checks for foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) and issued alerts to veterinarians after an outbreak of the highly contagious virus was detected in cattle in Germany last week, prompting trade bans from several countries.

The UK ban on cattle, pigs and sheep imports from Germany does not apply to Northern Ireland.

German authorities are to lift an emergency ordinance to stop the spread of the livestock illness foot-and-mouth disease at the end of the day, the agriculture ministry in the eastern state of Brandenburg said on Friday.

Germany’s agriculture industry faces sales losses of about €1 billion ($1.03 billion) due to an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease that has led to export restrictions, farm cooperatives group DRV said.

Germany’s farming and food industry is likely to have lost about 1 billion euros ($1 billion) of business following an outbreak of the livestock illness foot-and-mouth disease, the head of the farming cooperatives association told German media on Thursday.