More Foot-And-Mouth Disease Outbreaks Found in Britain
Pastor Dale Morgan
More Foot-And-Mouth Disease Outbreaks Found in Britain*
By THOMAS WAGNER,
Associated Press Writer
LONDON - Britain's livestock owners received more bad news Monday:
Another herd of cattle tested positive for foot-and-mouth disease, and a
second cow was found to have bluetongue disease.
Since the new outbreak of foot and mouth last month, hundreds of animals
have been slaughtered and movement of animals has been restricted at one
of the busiest times of the year for livestock sales.
A larger outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in 2001 resulted in
thousands of cattle, sheep and pig carcasses being burned on large pyres
across the country and the farming industry lost millions in revenue.
In the latest outbreak, a herd of cattle slaughtered Monday tested
positive for the highly infectious disease, the Department for
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said.
The cattle were found in an existing foot-and-mouth control zone of
Surrey, southeast of London, and the site became the seventh one where
livestock tested positive for the disease in England since last month.
Before Monday, four cases of foot-and-mouth had been confirmed in Surrey
this month, following two in August that authorities traced to a nearby
veterinary laboratory site.
Foot-and-mouth disease affects cloven-hoofed animals, including cows,
sheep, pigs and goats. It does not infect humans.
Earlier Monday, the environment ministry announced that a second cow had
tested positive for bluetongue disease at a farm in Suffolk in eastern
England. It said the cow was on the same farm where the initial case was
discovered over the weekend, the first ever found in Britain.
Bluetongue is an insect-borne, viral disease once common only in
Mediterranean climes. It can be fatal for cows, sheep and other ruminant
animals, but does not affect humans.
A bluetongue temporary area for surveillance was being established in a
large area north and northeast of London, including Suffolk, Norfolk,
Northamptonshire, Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire, Nottinghamshire and
Lincolnshire.