Foot-and-mouth epidemic months from cleanup

LONDON - A top scientific adviser to the British Government says the country's foot-and-mouth epidemic is out of control and may take a further five months to eliminate.

And last night came the news that sheep on a farm in County Louth, just over the border from Northern Ireland, had tested positive for the disease, the first confirmed case in the Irish Republic.

While world attention remains focused on the British outbreak, the Netherlands has become the second mainland European state to fall victim to the highly contagious and financially costly disease.

France was the first.

The Netherlands, which has found foot-and-mouth on three farms, plans to vaccinate animals as part of efforts to prevent the disease spreading - a measure Britain and other countries have rejected on grounds of cost and that it would be only short term.

In Britain, 40 new infected sites were found yesterday, bringing the total to 435 and showing the country is far from controlling the month-long epidemic that has paralysed much of its countryside, from farming to the lucrative tourism industry.

"I think everybody is in agreement - the Government, the farming community and the independent scientific advice - that this epidemic is not under control," said Professor Roy Anderson, an epidemiologist called in by the Agriculture Ministry to monitor the crisis.

The scale of the disaster is underscored by figures showing that more than 270,000 animals have been slaughtered because they were infected or as a precaution, and a further 130,000 are waiting to be killed.

Nearly 80,000 carcasses are piled up awaiting disposal, and giant pyres burn round the clock in infected areas. The disease afflicts cloven-hoofed livestock such as pigs, sheep and cattle by causing mouth and foot blisters and severe weight loss.

Anderson said the epidemic was likely to rage on for months - possibly until August.

If the number of cases continues to increase at a rate of two an hour, the epidemic will peak early in May - tipped as Prime Minister Tony Blair's favoured time for a general election.

Anderson said it was likely to be the worst foot-and-mouth epidemic the country had seen, overtaking a major outbreak in 1967.

He attributed this to changes in farming practices, including larger herds and the increased movement of livestock.

The Dutch Government reacted to its outbreak with an export ban on all meat, meat products and dairy products.

It also placed a three-day ban on feed and milk transportation across the country, extending an earlier 10km limit.

It plans to cull 18,000 animals within a week to contain the outbreak, and will inoculate those animals that cannot be killed immediately to prevent the disease from spreading.

The ban on livestock movements forced the cancellation of a top equestrian tournament at Den Bosch, close to an area with suspected cases of the disease, and extra customs controls were imposed at Amsterdam's Schipol airport.

News of the Dutch outbreak sent pork prices sharply higher on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

Traders said the spread of the disease to a second country in continental Europe suggested that it might reach Denmark, one of the world's largest pork exporters.

An outbreak there would force Denmark to halt meat shipments, leaving most of the world market to the United States and Canada.

Prices of feed ingredients such as corn and soymeal tumbled at the Chicago Board of Trade as the widening slaughter of livestock herds threatened to shrink demand.

The US Agriculture Department estimated in a report that beef consumption in the European Union would plummet by 15 per cent this year as consumers reacted to outbreaks of both BSE (mad-cow disease) and foot-and-mouth.

- REUTERS

Herald Online feature: Foot-and-mouth disaster

UK outbreak map

World organisation for animal health

UK Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food

The European Commission for the Control of Foot-and-Mouth Disease

Pig Health/Foot and Mouth feature

Virus databases online