BBC
News
 A
new foot-and-mouth outbreak has been confirmed in north Devon, in a "serious"
blow to efforts to contain the disease.
A 10-mile exclusion zone has been
set up around the infected cattle farm in Highampton. Investigators are also carrying
out tests on another suspected outbreak at a nearby farm.
There has also
been another outbreak at a farm near Heddon-on-the-Wall, Northumberland, near
the site suspected to be the source of the outbreak.
The bad news comes
as livestock is killed and burned in the six other farms known to have harboured
the virus, and at two farms thought at risk of "contact".
Officials worked
overnight doing tests at the Highampton farm and the vet's reports came back positive
on Sunday morning, said a Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Foods (Maff)
spokesman.
The farm has 600 cattle and 1,500 sheep and the farmer runs
13 premises, 11 in Devon and two in Cornwall, all of which will be inspected.
Chief Veterinary Officer Jim Scudamore said he was "reasonably certain"
that the farmer had been exporting to Europe, although there would have been no
exports since the European Union ban enforced last week.
Agriculture Minister
Nick Brown told BBC One's Breakfast with Frost the new outbreak was "a worrying
development".
The regional National Farmers' Union spokesman, Ian Johnson,
said it could be a catastrophe for the South West.
"This is potentially
a nightmare scenario for the South West, which is Britain's biggest livestock
area," he said.
"In good times it would be a disaster but in times like
these it is a catastrophe."
Mr Brown said the new outbreak highlighted
the importance of restricting movements of livestock around the country.
With
no new cases in the last few days officials had been hopeful that the disease
had not spread.
But a BBC correspondent said there had been a lull of
new cases during the last major outbreak of the disease in 1967.
Incinerated
The
government has imposed a seven-day banned on all transport of livestock throughout
the country in an attempt to stop the spread of the highly contagious disease,
which affects pigs, cows, sheep and goats, but is harmless to humans.
Mr
Brown said this would be reviewed in light of the new case and the ban might be
extended.
The government is now undertaking a work to identify the origin
of the outbreak before Northumberland.
Activities curbed
Monday's
race meeting at Newcastle is cancelled
Camping and Caravaning Club cancels
meets
RSPB reserves closed
Fox and deer hunting and hare coursing banned
Whipsnade Wild Animal Park and Woburn Safari Park closed
Half of all city
farms shut
Visitors to London Zoo are being asked to walk across disinfected
matting
Richmond Park, Bushy Park and Hampton Court Home Park closed from
midnight on Sunday
Mr Brown said if the outbreak was the result of imported
meat from outside the UK being fed to animals it would almost certainly be from
an illegal import.
"It is very difficult to see the legal route for getting
such meat from a place where there is infection into this country," he said.
Hundreds
of animal carcasses are being incinerated on Sunday at farms where foot-and-mouth
disease has broken out.
Maff ordered the mass slaughter in an attempt
to wipe out the disease.
More than 800 pigs at Heddon-on-the-Wall will
be burned after being humanely killed.
Animals at the neighbouring farm
had already been slaughtered as a precaution but clinical tests taken at the time
revealed they were diseased.
A cull is also being carried out at the nearby
farm where a new outbreak is suspected. The cull had been planned as precaution
before scare.
But the disposal of pig carcasses at Greenacres Farm in
Canewdon, Essex could be delayed because of a lack of coal, angering the National
Farmers' Union. 
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