Dutch ban exports as disease hits

21 March 2001



Dutch ban exports as disease hits

By Philip Clarke, Europe editor

THE Netherlands has banned animal exports and halted all internal movements of livestock following its first case of foot-and-mouth disease.

The farm at Olst to the east of Amsterdam has a strictly closed herd and there is no obvious link with the UK, according to the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture.

“Final blood tests will not be known until Friday [23 March], but the symptoms are so clear it is obvious what it is,” said a ministry spokeswoman.

A second case also emerged on Wednesday (21 March), just 5km away at a goat farm in Oene. The animals had been under suspicion since the weekend.

Two more sites are affected – another farm where which received goats from the Oene herd, and an abattoir in the south of the country which took in goats.

The animals have been slaughtered at all three farm sites and, as a precautionary measure, so have the animals on other farms within a 1km radius.

A further 10km restriction zone has been put around the sites, prohibiting any movement of farm products, including fertiliser and milk.

All live animal movements have been stopped, including horses.

The Dutch government had already banned live exports and imports of susceptible species when the suspicions were first raised.

Japan went a step further, banning all imports of Dutch meat, including over 10,000t of pigmeat.