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F&M: Bio-security alert
05/08/2007 11:06 - (SA)
London - British authorities hunting the source of an outbreak of infectious foot and mouth disease focused their investigation on Sunday on two research labs located just miles from where a herd of cattle was infected.
While there was no confirmation the research sites were the source of the infection, both high-security labs - one run by the government's Institute for Animal Health and the other by a pharmaceutical company called Merial - were sealed off and placed within a 10-km radius exclusion zone.
Both laboratories handle a variety of strains of foot and mouth, conducting research into the virus and developing vaccines against it, as well as against other animal diseases.
Merial, one of the world's leading animal health firms with 2006 sales of $2.2bn, is jointly owned by US drugmaker Merck & Co. Inc. and France's Sanofi-Aventis SA.
Attention focused on the labs as the possible source of the infection after Defra, Britain's department for agriculture, said the strain of foot and mouth confirmed in 60 head of cattle on Friday was not one recently found in animals.
In fact, it was a strain of the virus isolated nearly 40 years ago by British biological researchers, it said.
Britain's chief veterinarian, Debby Reynolds, ordered an "urgent review into bio-security arrangements" at both sites, although Defra also emphasised that "all potential sources" of the virus were still being investigated.
The infected animals, found on a farm in Surrey, southwest
of London, were isolated, culled and taken away for burial on
Saturday. A nearby herd was also culled as a precaution.
"The foot and mouth strain found in Surrey is not one currently known to be recently found in animals," Defra said in a statement.
"It is most similar to strains used in international diagnostic laboratories and in vaccine production," it said, naming the Institute for Animal Health and Merial Animal Health, which are based at a site called Pirbright, located about 8 km north of the infected farm.
"The present indications are that this strain is a 01
BFS67-like virus, isolated in the 1967 foot and mouth disease
outbreak in Great Britain.
"Immediate action is being taken with an investigation led
by the Health and Safety Executive at the Institute for Animal
Health and Merial."
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