Healthy Cows

After tests on a third and fourth farm tested negative for foot and mouth disease, the British government began moves to ease fears about the extent of the outbreak.

The prime minister announced that the disease had been restricted to a small, tightly-controlled zone. It appeared the outbreak was now contained, although vigilance was still needed to maintain bio-security.

The outbreak has so far resulted in 570 animals that have been culled and destroyed. The European Union and some countries have imposed import bans on British beef and dairy products, resulting in a loss to farmers of about $3.6 million every day.

This may be a case where a research laboratory on the disease becomes the source of an outbreak. Authorities are investigating a research facility shared by the government’s Institute for Animal Health and the private laboratory Merial UK, owned by a joint venture between U.S. firm Merck and French company Sanofi-Aventis SA.

A stream near the lab runs past a vegetable garden lot used by an executive of Merial UK. There are over 100 barrels from the research lab scattered around the lot. The containers had not been decontaminated, although the company said decontamination was not needed since they were stored outside the hazard zone where research on the foot-and-mouth virus was done. Further down, the stream runs between the two farms hit by the disease and serves as the only source of drinking water for the cattle on the farms.

Investigators are convinced the virus originated from the Pirbright facility, because the virus strain found was stocked in very few labs around the world. After Pirbright, the nearest lab was in Belgium. The virus could have been on the barrels from the lab, and contaminated the water when the barrels were kept on the vegetable lot. The investigation report is likely to be completed next week.

In 2001, Britain suffered an epidemic of the disease. The government had to destroy 10 million cattle and ban tourists from the area. These measures cost the British economy $20.2 billion dollars at the time.

The Pirbright research laboratories were established to develop a vaccine for foot and mouth disease. The virus is easily spread. It can spread airborne on the wind. Animals affected can be observed foaming at the mouth before they collapse and eventually die.