Foot-and-mouth epidemic 'out of control'
Mar 26
Lenore Taylor in Stockholm
British officials have admitted the foot-and-mouth epidemic is spiralling out of control in the United Kingdom.
And with cases continuing to emerge across Europe, other European leaders are desperately seeking new ways to stop the spread of the highly infectious disease.
An epidemiological report delivered to the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, on Friday painted a terrible picture - the 520 cases detected in the UK so far are likely to explode to more than 4,000 by June, before the spread of the disease might start to slow.
One official who prepared the report was blunt about its findings, admitting that "currently the epidemic is out of control".
In a sombre delivery to a press conference at a meeting of European leaders in Stockholm, Sweden, Mr Blair announced new measures for faster slaughter of animals found to have the disease.
Britain's chief scientist had warned that without the faster slaughter procedures, Britain might end up having to destroy half of its total 62million livestock herd.
Meanwhile, a fourth case of foot-and-mouth was detected in Holland over the weekend and German officials in States bordering the Netherlands told farmers to act on the presumption that the disease had already arrived. On Friday, a second case was detected in France.
European Union vets have agreed to allow the Netherlands to vaccinate animals around the areas where the disease has been detected, a solution so far shunned by Britain because it runs the risk of long-term export bans. The Dutch Government said that in the first instance, it would attempt to halt the disease by slaughtering 20,000 animals. Exports from EU countries continue to be banned around the world - Japan has banned Danish pork exports and several nations banned exports from Ireland after the first case was detected there.
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