Government lab suspect outbreak

Aug 5 2007 by Phil Doherty and Robert Weatherall, Sunday Sun

A GOVERNMENT investigation into the latest outbreak of foot and mouth disease is focussing on one of its own laboratories.

An assessment of bio-security at the Institute for Animal Health at Pirbright, Surrey, where research into foot and mouth disease is conducted, showed the strain of foot and mouth virus found in infected cattle on a farm in Surrey is the same as one being used there.

Last night Defra confirmed the strain of the disease detected in the outbreak is not one recently found in animals. The farm and laboratory were both sealed off.

Chief Veterinary Officer Dr Debby Reynolds said they were examining all possible sources of the virus including illegal animal movements, undisclosed infection in legal movements, laboratories and the deliberate release of the infection.

She said: "All possible sources are being investigated. It’s important not to rule out any source in our inquiries."

The centre is within the 10-mile surveillance cordon that has been thrown around the farm close to the village of Wanborough near Guildford where 60 animals have tested positive.

It is just outside the three-mile protection zone. It is the designated United Nations World Reference Laboratory on foot and mouth and it holds live samples of the many strains of the devastating virus.

Dr Reynolds said a small number of potential cases had been reported in the wake of the discovery, some of which had already been found to be negative.

She urged farmers: "Examine your animals and if there’s anything wrong with them which is likely to be foot and mouth disease you must immediately report it to Animal Health."

She also told livestock owners to be bio-secure in the face of the first case of foot and mouth disease since the devastating outbreak in 2001 and advised them to adhere to the nationwide ban on livestock movement.

Dr Reynolds said epidemiologists were attempting to identify the strain of the virus found in the infected cattle, which are being slaughtered, and were working closely with the farmer to trace how it came to be in his herd.

She said vaccinations formed part of Defra’s contingency plans in case of an outbreak.

Richard Macdonald, director general of the National Farmers’ Union, said: "It has been a pretty devastating 24 hours for the livestock industry."

He urged farmers to "go the extra mile" with their bio-security and said officials had learned lessons from 2001 . . . that if they hit it hard now they had a better chance of containing the disease.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown cancelled his holiday in Dorset to return to London for a meeting of Cobra, the civil contingencies committee which leads responses to national crises.

Mr Brown said: "I want to do everything in our power immediately to get to the scientific evidence, to look at the source of what has happened, to set up a number of inquiries so that we can actually move very quickly, I mean within hours and days, to see what has actually happened and then to eradicate this disease in Britain."

Page 2: North farmer blames FMD outbreak on loopholes