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More needs to be done if we are to ensure we do not see a repeat of the foot and mouth disease outbreak of 2001, according to the Countess of Mar.
This year sees the tenth anniversary of the 2001 foot and mouth disease (FMD) epidemic when at least 10 million animals died. Many had not even been exposed to the virus. Few outside the farming community realise the extent of the trauma and social consequences.
With the disease currently spreading between the wild boar herds and domestic livestock in Bulgaria and Korea, and few apparent detection facilities at our ports and airports, it is vital that the UK remains vigilant.
In late October/early November 2010 the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) conducted 'Exercise Silver Birch' – a dry run for a potential outbreak of FMD in the UK. Despite numerous stakeholder meetings over many years, the exercise demonstrated several serious flaws in Defra's contingency measures.
As well as communications difficulties created by the dense bureaucratic language; a lack of provision for recruitment of official veterinarians from private veterinary practices, and the failure of the Animal Movements Licensing System to provide effective tracing, I was astonished to learn that those managing the exercise decided not to vaccinate. It was claimed that the meat industry wouldn't buy meat from vaccinated animals. This is an extraordinary claim – all the meat from Argentina and Brazil is from FMD-vaccinated animals.
There is no scientific reason for the ban on the use of vaccination. It is safe for humans; it is now possible to detect the difference between an infected animal and one that has been vaccinated with DIVA vaccines, yet these have not been validated by the UK government. Neither have they validated the portable rapid diagnosis kits for use at the farm gate, despite their being available since 2001. Emergency vaccination is most useful if deployed early on, as we saw when there was an outbreak of the disease in Holland in 2001, but the UK is not prepared.
It needs to be understood that it is trade that is holding back science. There is a special trading advantage to countries that can show that they do not have endemic FMD. Lack of vaccination is taken to mean that there is no endemic FMD. Vaccination is thought to mask disease by creating carriers, but this has never been shown to happen in the field.
Defra needs to get its act together if the 2001 epidemic is not to be repeated, but they appear not to have any funds for such contingency measures.
The Countess of Mar, a farmer by profession, first entered the House of Lords as a hereditary peer in 1975. She is now vice-chair of the all-party-parliamentary group on agriculture and food for development.
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