Anxiety eases over U.K. foot-and-mouth outbreak

A zoo in Surrey and a farm in Kent have been given a provisional all-clear over foot and mouth disease after initial tests came back negative. To the relief of the farming industry, Chief Vet Debby Reynolds, has also lifted more restrictions on animal movements and claimed the risk of the disease spreading was “very low.” So far the outbreak has been confined to a surveillance area in Surrey that includes two laboratories thought to be the source of the two confirmed cases. On Tuesday, three-kilometer control zones were placed around Honeychild Manor Farm in the Romney Marsh area of Kent, and a children’s zoo at Chessington World of Adventures in Surrey, outside the original Surrey protection zones. Precautionary measures in the two areas are now expected to be lifted based on the test results. A similar protection zone, and a wider ten-kilometer surveillance zone, remained in place around the two confirmed cases.

The Guardian’s Matthew Weaver reports that Reynolds’s decision means that the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) is lifting restrictions on animal movement to allow livestock to be moved around a farm for welfare reasons. For example, cows can now be taken from fields to milking sheds on a premises. A ban still remains in place on the transportation of animals from farm to market. However, a special licence would apply to the pig industry to allow the movement of pigs being bred and reared.

An independent epidemiology report last Friday concluded it was “very highly likely” the source of the disease was the Pirbright research complex shared by the government-funded Institute for Animal Health and the pharmaceutical company Merial. Both Pirbright laboratories were working on the foot-and-mouth strain found at the site of the first outbreak. Merial was producing it in large quantities for vaccines while the IAH was using small amounts for research. Both laboratories have insisted their biosecurity measures are robust.