Science research laboratory suspected in foot and mouth outbreak

Science lab suspected in foot and mouth outbreak - Observer

Extract:

"An accidental leak of an experimental vaccine from a private research site was being investigated urgently last night as the likely source of Britain's new foot and mouth disease outbreak. The news came as the government attempted to avert a full-scale crisis in farming and the tourism industry.

Movement of all livestock has been banned, exports to Europe stopped and country fairs cancelled to minimise the risk of the country suffering a disastrous rerun of the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic which cost the nation £8.5bn.

Scientists made a breakthrough last night as they identified the strain of the virus as one which is not naturally occurring, but is a vaccine strain, and has never been seen before in Europe. This enabled investigators to link the outbreak to a company which lies less than three miles down the road from the source of the outbreak.

Merial Animal Health, a private pharmaceutical firm shares facilities with a government laboratory in Pirbright, and is commissioned by the European Union to formulate new vaccines for animal diseases. Both companies are expected to meet tight regulatory standards for biosecurity.

Investigators are now focusing on whether there was a lapse which meant that a batch of the vaccine, made last month, escaped the site. The company is believed to test its vaccines on animals, which may have been able to graze on the land. The virus may have been carried by the wind, or by people or vehicles down the road from the site to a rented field in the village of Normandy, near Guildford, where the outbreak happened.

By last night, dozens of vets and farm officials had been sent into a 10km 'surveillance' zone around the outbreak centre at Woolfords Farm to start disinfecting equipment and vehicles, as well as testing sheep, cattle and pigs from other farms. Hundreds more cattle, sheep and pigs in the zone face slaughter amid fears that they may have been infected by an airborne strain of the virus escaping from a nearby research centre.

The news that this may be an isolated outbreak, caused accidentally because of human error, will come as a relief to many farmers, because it makes it far less likely that the disease has already begun to spread around Britain. It also alleviates fears that the disease could somehow have made its way into the animal food chain, as happened in 2001 when it was found to be contained in pigswill.

The fact that it is a vaccine strain - called 01 BFS67 - also means that the infected animals are likely to have had a more mild form of the disease, and are much less likely to be contagious to other cattle.

At a press conference in London, the government's chief veterinary officer, Debby Reynolds, said one of her first acts was to review biosecurity at Pirbright."