Euro-vets debate vaccine option

28 March 2001



Euro-vets debate vaccine option

By FWi staff

EXPERT vets in Brussels are considering the request by agriculture minister Nick Brown to allow vaccination against foot-and-mouth disease.

The European Unions Standing Veterinary Committee is discussing the merits of Mr Browns request at a meeting on Wednesday (27 March).

No decision to vaccinate has yet been taken. The policy has been used before with some success in Europe, but never in Britain.

Mr Brown said he had approached Brussels so that vaccination could be deployed immediately if the government concluded that it was necessary.

Vaccination is being used as an emergency measure in the Netherlands which reported two more cases of foot-and-mouth on Wednesday (28 March)

The veterinary committee gave the go-ahead for this policy late last week, so long as all vaccinated animals are killed within two months.

“There are not enough people on the ground to do the killing quickly enough,” said Dutch ministry of agriculture spokesman Gabor Oolthuis.

“Emergency vaccination allows us to contain the disease.”

But it does not go far enough for some Dutch farmers, who want preventative vaccination of the national dairy herd to save it from slaughter.

Dutch agriculture minister Laurens Jan Brinkhorst also favours preventative vaccination – but only if the whole of the European Union does it.

More than half of farm output from the Netherlands is exported to other EU countries. Mr Oolthuis said: “If we did this alone, we would lose that market.”