Financial Times
 The
discovery of the first case of foot-and-mouth disease in the UK
for 20 years could result in a ban on the export of live animals
from the country.
The highly
infectious viral disease was diagnosed in 27 pigs at the Cheale
Meats abattoir in Essex during a routine inspection, and Jim Scudamore,
the chief veterinary officer, said a complete ban on exports may
now be required.
All 300 animals
at the Cheale abattoir will now be destroyed and management said
they were "co-operating fully" with the Ministry of
Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) to determine the source
of the outbreak.
Nonetheless,
farmers could face the first foot-and-mouth epidemic since 1967.
Another case has already been identified at a farm close to the
Cheale abattoir in Little Warley, near Brentwood, according to
reports.
The National
Farmers' Union said the outbreak could prove disastrous for the
country's livestock farmers. The pig sector is still recovering
from an epidemic of swine fever last year, when 12,000 pigs were
slaughtered and a temporary ban on the export of live pigs and
pig semen was introduced. Beef producers continue to suffer the
repercussions of BSE, or mad cow disease.
"The
priority now is to contain [the outbreak] and we fully support
all the measures which have been speedily put in place by MAFF,"
Ben Gill, NFU president, said. "While these measures will
be devastating to the farms involved, it is in the interests of
the whole UK livestock industry that this disease is stopped dead
in its tracks."
MAFF called
on farmers to check their stocks and report any potential symptoms.
A five-mile
exclusion zone has been established around the Cheale Meats abattoir,
preventing the movement of animals, with further exclusion zones
imposed around farms in Horwood, Buckinghamshire and Freshwater
Bay in the Isle of Wight.
The Food Standards
Agency said the cases did not have any implications for the human
food chain.
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