Pleasant land a plague zone

LONDON - From Sydney to New York, the shoes of British visitors are disinfected at airports.

From Amsterdam to Seoul, tourists are wondering - is it safe to travel to Britain?

Whatever happened to the image of a "green and pleasant land" which an Irish minister now calls "the leper of Europe"?

First there were the shocking pictures in the 1990s of mad cows staggering with disease.

Now the grim image is a smouldering funeral pyre, eloquent testimony to the highly contagious foot-and-mouth epidemic spreading around Britain.

Never have the British needed a stiff upper lip more.

A spokesman for the World Tourism Organisation warned: "The UK has already seen a slowdown [in tourist numbers] in 2000 according to our preliminary data and that trend will continue if foot-and-mouth and other calamities continue to occur."

Mad-cow disease can spread to humans. Foot and mouth cannot. But tourist officials say Americans contemplating a trip to Europe confuse the two.

Fred Copland, president of the American Association of Travel Agents, said he had not seen an impact so far on bookings "but only time will tell. If the media picks up more of this or if some horror stories hit, it has the potential."

Even if they do cross the Atlantic, American tourists are being told to stay away from farms and zoos for five days before they go home.

Britons going to the US face having their laptops, cameras and cellphones disinfected at the airport. The "Beagle Brigade" of sniffer dogs is on high alert.

- REUTERS

Feature: Foot-and-Mouth Disease epidemic