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.

Germany has not found any further cases of foot-and-mouth disease, agriculture minister Cem Oezdemir said on Wednesday, adding that experts were working day and night to establish the source of the country's first outbreak in decades.

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.