A second herd of cattle in southern Britain has contracted foot and mouth disease, the government said on Tuesday, raising fears that the highly damaging animal virus is spreading.
Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said culling of animals had already begun at the farm, which was within a 10km radius protection zone set up around a farm where foot and mouth cases were first found last week.
The outbreak poses an immediate threat to the British livestock industry, whose exports are worth $1-billion a year.
”The chief veterinary officer will confirm shortly … that the tests that were done overnight on the samples taken … confirm foot and mouth,” Benn told BBC television.
Keeping on top of outbreak
”We’ve got to keep on top of this outbreak and make sure it doesn’t spread anywhere else.”
Foot and mouth disease, which affects cloven-hoofed animals and which can be carried on the wind, was confirmed in a small herd of cattle on a farm in Surrey, south-west of London, on Friday. The cattle were destroyed and protection zones enforced.
It was the first outbreak of the disease in Britain since 2001, when the illness caused devastation among the farming community.
More than six million animals were burnt on vast funeral pyres and the crisis cost agriculture and the rural tourism industry around £8,5-billion ($17-billion).
Lawrence Matthews, who farms around 1 000 hectares in Surrey, said farmers’ worst fears had been reawakened by news of a second outbreak.
”We were starting to think this virus had been contained and maybe we were going to be getting back to normality in a few weeks,” he told BBC radio. ”Now this second outbreak has set us back again.”
”Farmers … are very, very scared and all activity on farms is also coming to a complete standstill.”
Following the discovery of the disease on Friday, the European Union banned all British exports of fresh meat, live animals and milk products. Britain’s exports of meat are worth more than $1-billion a year.
It is still not clear how the outbreak of the disease began, but investigators are focusing on two animal research labs — one run by the government, the other private — sited about 8km from where the disease erupted.
They are also considering the possibility that recent heavy floods across central and parts of southern Britain may have contributed to the transmission of the virus.
Benn said he expected an initial report from investigators to be made public on Tuesday.
To try to limit the spread of the disease, the government has banned the movement of farm animals nationwide. That is expected to last for at least several weeks and could have a deep economic impact on farming.
Matthews said ”economic damage has already been done” and that was ”definitely going to increase”. He also expressed fears that footpaths within a 3 km exclusion zone around the confirmed outbreak had apparently not been closed to the public.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited a disease control centre close to the affected area on Monday and said a major national effort was under way to halt the infection.
Britain’s chief veterinary officer, Debby Reynolds, said the ”intensive work” of animal health experts had meant authorities had ”been able to … take appropriate action swiftly.”
”I continue to urge all animal keepers to be vigilant for signs of disease and practice strict biosecurity,” she said.
The laboratories that investigators are focusing on as the possible source of the outbreak are the government-run Institute for Animal Health and a facility operated by Merial Animal Health, jointly owned by United States drugmaker Merck and France’s Sanofi-Aventis. – Reuters