iblog

Six years after its first major outbreak, foot and mouth disease has returned to the United Kingdom. A ban has been imposed on the movement of livestock across the country after cattle on a Surrey farm were found to have contracted the deadly infection. The affected animals belong to a farm located near the village of Wanborough, close to Guildford. All cattle on the farm’s premises are to be culled in order to prevent further spread of the disease and a 3km-wide protective cordon has been placed around the affected farm. Investigations are currently underway to ascertain the source of the infection. According to Debbie Reynolds, Britain’s Chief Veterinary Officer:

“The government is trying to form a picture of where the infection may have come from but at the moment it’s very early stages. It is the absolute priority at the moment to prevent further spread, and piece together information about how it might have got there in the first place.”

The foot and mouth crisis is yet another test for the newly-formed Labour government led by Gordon Brown. Mr. Brown will be returning shortly to London to chair a meeting of the government’s COBRA committee. In the meantime, British farmers are all urged to examine their cattle for signs of the disease. Symptoms include fever, lameness and lesions in the mouth.

In the past, the disease has proved highly contagious for cattle. Previous outbreaks of foot and mouth in the UK led to the culling of over 7 million cattle and the loss of billions of pounds worth of revenue for the farming industry. The European Union is closely monitoring the current situation in Britain and the organisation is expected to ban all imports of British beef.

It is hoped that the current outbreak of foot and mouth will be short-lived. A speedy response is essential in order to prevent further cattle from being affected. As Hugh Pennington, Professor of Microbiology at the University of Aberdeen, noted:

Speed is of the essence here. We have got to really stop this virus spreading, obviously first of all to stamp it out in the locality where it has been identified and then see whether the virus has got anywhere else.

It is likely that the British government will want to act as swiftly as possible to meet these reccomendations.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 4th, 2007 at 12:17 pm and is filed under Current Affairs, Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.