Foot and mouth disease could still be lurking on British farms, the government鈥檚 chief veterinary officer has warned. Speaking at a conference in London on virology, Jim Scudamore warned that despite Tuesday鈥檚 all-clear following the world鈥檚 largest ever outbreak, the disease could flare up again.
鈥淲e鈥檝e had no disease for three months, but it doesn鈥檛 give us absolute reassurance that there鈥檚 no virus in the country.鈥� Flare-ups might occur when farmers restock, he warned.
鈥淭here are huge numbers of farms to be restocked. If disinfection is incomplete, it may recur.鈥� There were no fewer than 18 flare-ups after Britain鈥檚 last big epidemic in 1967, Scudamore said. But there could be more this time around because of the sheer scale of the epidemic.
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There were 2026 confirmed cases and four million animals were slaughtered at almost 10,000 farms to prevent the disease spreading. In the 1967 outbreak, only about half a million animals were slaughtered.
Vaccination dilemma
Scudamore said that the government might consider vaccination in the future, but defended the decision not to use it last year. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 believe that, on its own, vaccination would have eliminated foot and mouth from the UK,鈥� he said.
The government considered using it on 12 occasions, but decided against it each time for a variety of reasons, from the reluctance of farmers to sheer impracticality. 鈥�175 vaccination teams would鈥檝e been needed for Cumbria alone,鈥� he said.
Scudamore also revealed figures suggesting that more animals might ultimately have been culled anyway had vaccination been used. He said that in the Netherlands, where vaccination was used to contain 26 cases, 2600 were slaughtered per infected farm. In Britain, the figure was 2000.
