There is growing optimism that the foot and mouth epidemic may be largely confined to the UK after no new cases of the contagious virus has been reported in France since last week.
But vigilance still remains high against the disease in continental Europe despite the discovery of one confirmed case on a farm in Mayenne, France. Scares in France, Germany, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands – where animals have shown foot-and-mouth symptoms – have come and gone, boosting hopes that measures in the continent can be relaxed.
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A EU vets’ meeting today [Tuesday] is unlikely to lift measures on the movement of livestock throughout the 15 member states, as the danger from the disease spreading from the UK still exists. A ban on British and French exports of meat is likely to be extended from its present March 27th deadline.
In the UK, the army has been called in to help control the disease as the toll of confirmed cases rose to 379 on Tuesday.
Troops, initially deployed in Devon, are helping to clear culled animals that some farmers say are helping the spread of the disease. Farmers in Northern England have continued to attack the government’s healthy cull of livestock. A legal challenge to the government’s decision might be launched as efforts step up advocating an alternative vaccination programme.
Critics of the government’s handling of the crisis have said that slaughter can now not outpace the spread of a disease and a vaccination programme is the only real way of improving an already critical situation.
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By GlobalDataA paper drafted with the help of Elm Farm Research Centre, a leading organic farming analyst funded by the Agriculture Ministry and the European Union among others, said the cull had started too late and is scientifically mistaken.
“The infection is simply too infectious under British conditions in high density stock rearing areas for control by slaughter policy,” the paper said.
