Foot-and-mouth disease spreads

2007-08-07 11:12

London - Tests confirmed a second outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease southwest of London, Britain's environment secretary said on Tuesday, raising fears the highly contagious virus could spread to herds across southern England.

Meanwhile, Sky News reports a third outbreak is suspected.

A second batch of cows, tested late on Monday, were within the initial three-kilometre radius protection zone set up on Friday around the farm where a first group of infected cattle was found, Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said.

The outbreak, 50km southwest of London, occurred just 6.5km from a laboratory that produces vaccines containing the same rarely seen strain of foot-and-mouth disease, officials said.

Benn was expecting an initial report on Tuesday following checks to see whether there have been breaches in security or safety at the laboratory, which is the focus of investigations into the outbreak.

Farmers 'very, very scared'

News of a second confirmed outbreak fed fears of a repeat of scenes in 2001, when seven million animals were culled and incinerated on pyres, devastating agriculture and rural tourism in Britain.

"We were starting to think this virus had been contained and maybe we were going to be getting back to normality in a few weeks," farmer Laurence Matthews, who owns the farm where the second infected herd grazed, told British Broadcasting Corporation radio on Tuesday.

"Now this has set us back again and most farmers, and I've been speaking to a few, are very, very scared," he said. Matthews, who met Prime Minister Gordon Brown when the leader toured the region on Monday, said the infected cows belonged to a fellow farmer who used his land.

- AP