Caution
Chief vet rules out vaccination against FMD
The Government's chief vet today ruled out the immediate use of vaccinations to protect animals at risk in the current outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease as it was revealed that none of the 362 livestock culled as a precaution on Wednesday was infected.
Although tens of thousands of doses of the vaccine have been ready since Monday, Dr Debby Reynolds said that there were no plans to use them at present.
Speaking at a press conference this morning she said: “It has been decided not to vaccinate at this time, however this approach will be kept under review as the disease situation develops.
“Any decision to vaccinate will be based on a veterinary decision of the risks. We will look at this day by day by day.”
There was relief for farmers that the deadly disease did not appear to have spread as far as feared, as tests showed that the 362 animals culled on Wednesday at a farm in Surrey had not contracted the Foot and Mouth virus, officials said today.
The cattle, sheep, pigs and goats of Hunt Hill Farm were slaughtered as a precaution because they had been grazing close to the fields of John Gunner – the second farmer to discover the virus amongst his herd since the outbreak was reported last week.
Vets from the Department of the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra) considered this a “dangerous contact”, and the animals were killed while tests were carried out.
The farm is run by John and Georgina Emerson, who sell their produce at farmers markets. Mr Emerson said on Wednesday that the slaughter had left a “real void in our lives”. He fears he will lose £10,000 of organic meat in his cold store that is rapidly moving past its sell by date.
Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister said today that the risk of the disease now spreading was "negligible".
"We have restricted the disease to a limited area of this country. The risk of it spreading out of these areas is low, if not negligible"
Meanwhile senior members of the leading farm animal welfare charity Compassion in World Farming were this afternoon urging Defra to relent and start using vaccinations.
Philip Lymbery, the Chief Executive, said: “We have lost quite enough animals now, Defra must vaccinate immediately to stop this disease causing any more unnecessary suffering to farm animals and undue disruption to the farming community.
The charity is also concerned that Defra has not made it clear whether their vaccination strategy would be ‘vaccinate to live’, allowing animals live out their normal economic lives and their meat is then eaten; or ‘vaccinate to die’ whereby animals are vaccinated to reduce the spread of infection and later killed.
Dr Reynolds also said that the results were not yet available from tests carried out on Lawrence Matthews' farm outside the exclusion zone in the latest suspected case of the disease.
Part of Mr Matthews' land lies within the exclusion zone around previous cases near the village of Normandy, and was grazed by another farmer whose cattle were affected.
A 3km temporary control zone has been set up around Mr Matthews' farm near Dorking, outside the existing surveillance area, as Defra awaits the results of swabs and blood tests on 65 calves.
This morning Mr Matthews, who has around 800 cattle, said that he was “absolutely sure” the disease was not on his farm and although his animals showed signs of ulcers there were no lesions. He said he was confident that the flu-like symptoms that had appeared in his calves, such as watery eyes, would be a routine virus.
He said his vet was “absolutely sure” it is not foot and mouth but they wanted to be “100 per cent sure” so he contacted Defra.
“The calves are from farms around here and are three to five weeks old. Like children going to school in the autumn we get flu bugs that go round, runny eyes but no lesions on their feet or mouths," he told Sky News.
“There was an ulcer but ulcers are common in calves. But to be sure we had them tested. “
He added: “We are waiting for those results and hopefully it will show it was not foot and mouth. I was so worried because of my links to Normandy.”
He farms 2,500 acres, of which 200 acres lies in the protection zone. But he insisted that his calves had never been inside the exclusion zone, and that neither he nor any of his staff had visited land in the zone since Spring.
"My cattle have never been to Normandy. My cattle have never mixed with Mr Gunner's or Mr Pride's (farmers whose stock have already been infected)," he said.
The suspected new outbreak came as a scientist called in to investigate whether the virus had escaped from an animal health research plant said yesterday that sabotage was fast becoming the only explanation.
Andrew King, who was brought in by the Institute of Animal Health (IAH), in Pirbright, Surrey, suggested that it was time to call in the police.
Dr King, a former head of molecular biology at the IAH, said that biosecurity was so tight that he felt the outbreak had to have been caused deliberately.
He told The Times: “As far as I am concerned the authorities have failed to find any chink in the armoury of the establishment’s bio-security. What you are left with is human movement, which is not a matter for the institute, it’s a police matter. It’s very, very unlikely that it could be spread by accident. People do not spread the disease easily.”
Health and Safety Executive (HSE) staff, investigating how the virus infected at least two farms three miles from the Surrey complex, concluded in their preliminary report that human movements, either deliberate or accidental, were the most likely means by which the FMD virus escaped from laboratories with strict biosecurity measures designed to prevent leaks.
The IAH and Merial, the American company that shares the same site at Pirbright, were named as the two most probable sources of FMD, but investigators have so far been unable to find any evidence that the biosecurity procedures and equipment were faulty.
Dr King said he thought it likely that Merial would also be given a clean bill of health. “That establishment is inspected by Defra every six months. Defra grants the licence. Defra says it’s OK,” he said.
He described a range of biosecurity measures to protect against leaks, including staff in contact with viruses having to shower and change all clothes. “None of these single measures is absolute but together it makes it impossible for the virus to get out and it never has got out in the modern era,” he said. “It has to be regarded as a bit fishy.”
Dr King added that the longest period after which the virus had ever been recovered from the human body after heavy exposure was 48 hours, and that involved a full body search. To pass the virus from human to cow “you would have to hug a cow and breathe down its nose”, he said.
(Published by Times Online, August 10, 2007)
___________________________