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.

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.

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.

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.

A government ban on pig, sheep and cattle imports from Germany announced on Tuesday did not apply to Northern Ireland. On Thursday, the Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs said that it has "strict import controls" in place,

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.