F&M probe focuses on lab staff

2007-08-08 13:24

London - A probe into Britain's new foot-and-mouth disease outbreak on Wednesday focused on whether staff at an animal vaccine firm may have spread the virus, possibly deliberately.

Health inspectors said there was a "strong probability" the leaked strain came from the Pirbright research site southwest of London, which houses the government's Institute for Animal Health and Merial Animal Health Limited.

A preliminary report into the outbreak said on Tuesday it was a "real possibility" that human movement spread the disease to two nearby farms, with Merial coming increasingly under suspicion.

Foot-and-mouth disease was first confirmed last Friday. Exclusion zones have been set up around the two farms found to have the disease and the laboratory. British meat exports have also been halted but this could be eased Wednesday by a meeting of EU experts in Brussels.

Amid media reports that other farms are under observation, farmers fear a repeat of the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak that cost billions of dollars.

Disease strain worked on

The Sun and the Daily Mail newspapers said a lab worker at Merial, which is owned by US drugmaker Merck and France's Sanofi-Aventis SA, could have spread the disease through his vegetable garden near the affected farm.

But in a statement on Wednesday, Merial said: "To date, we have not been able to establish any evidence that the virus may have been transported out of our centre by humans."

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) report did not blame either the government laboratory or Merial but it found the disease strain was being worked on last month at the research facility.

That included "large scale production" involving 10 000 litres by Merial, which produces vaccines, and "small scale experiments" involving less than 10 millilitres by the IAH.

- AFP