Foot and mouth disease was discovered at a second farm in Surrey, England. The 3 km protection zone may have to be extended to include a 3 km zone around the second farm.
On August 7, 2007 the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs enforced a 3 km protection zone and a 10 km surveillance zone around the farms where foot and mouth disease was detected. The protection zone included closure of walking paths in areas surrounding the affected farms.
Yesterday, the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs reported that foot and mouth disease had been detected at a second farm in Surrey.
Culling has resulted in the deaths of 100 cattle to date.
The last outbreak of foot and mouth disease caused the Ministry of Agriculture to ban animal movements, impose restrictions on access to rural areas, and order the culling of 2.4 million cows, pigs and sheep.
Food and mouth disease rarely causes infection in humans: the last human case of foot and mouth disease occurred in 1967. Incidentally, the suspected outbreak strain is a research laboratory strain from the 1967 outbreak. Could this strain be more capable of causing illness in humans than strains involved in the 2001 outbreak in animals?
Vaccine is available for foot and mouth disease; however, the trend in the meat and dairy industries is not to immunize. Vaccination is expensive, time-consuming, must be performed every 6 months. And, there are concerns as to its effectiveness in the prevention of foot and mouth disease. Not all cattle build immunity to foot and mouth disease, and current import testing cannot differentiate between immune response due to immunization, and immune response caused by infection. An import ban of six months would be imposed by most countries in efforts to protect previously uninfected herds.
There is some concern that the recent outbreak of foot and mouth disease is a result of a deliberate release of the virus responsible. The TIMESONLINE reported that officials could not rule out the possibility that the Surrey foot and mouth disease outbreak was an act of sabotage. Being the analytical sort and having given presentations on laboratory preparedness for bioterrorism, I look forward to the investigation that follows.
I truly believe that there is that is a natural non-nefarious explanation for the isolation of a research laboratory strain in a domestic livestock outbreak. The potential for a virus to spread 3 km on the wind is somewhat doubtful, but not impossible.
The possibility that waste effluent and heavy rains affected transmission of the virus to the affected farms can also not be ruled out. And, the possibility that the virus was carried, intentionally or not, from one of the research facilities to the affected farm(s) can not be ruled out either. Regardless of how the virus spread from the research facilities to the farm(s), you can bet that human error (not human intention) was involved!Read more about foot and mouth disease:
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