Foot-and-mouth export ban
21 February 2001
Foot-and-mouth export ban
By FWi staff
THE British government has announced emergency controls on the export of live animals, meat and milk following an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.
Junior farm minister Baroness Hayman announced the controls in a statement to the House of Lords in London on Wednesday (21 February).
“This is normal precautionary practice for disease control purposes in outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease,” she said.
“The department is putting in place emergency operational arrangements broadly following the pattern of last years classical swine fever outbreak.”
The outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease is known as the “O-strain” – a pan-Asian variety which recently infected Japan, South Korea and the Middle East.
It is a very virulent form of the disease with a short incubation period of just 2-3 days, said the governments Chief Veterinary Officer Jim Scudamore.
As well as export controls, restrictions on livestock movements in a five-mile area have been imposed around the source of the outbreak at an Essex abattoir.
The infected pigs arrived last week at the Cheale Meats slaughterhouse, near Brentwood, Essex, from two farms in Buckinghamshire and the Isle of Wight.
Restrictions have been imposed around those two farms but, so far, no animals at either unit have shown signs of the disease.
That indicates that the infected pigs may have caught the disease while they were waiting in lairage to be slaughtered in Essex.
The abattoir and next-door farm were placed under restriction on Tuesday (20 February). Three hundred pigs and 60 cattle will be slaughtered.
“They are checking on all the farms that have supplied us in the last fortnight – and that could be thousands,” said abattoir manager Paul Cheale.
A fourth farm has been placed under restriction in Gloucestershire. But experts believe it could be weeks before the source is identified.
- Foot-and-mouth halts NFU meetings, FWi, 21 February, 2001
- Foot-and-mouth – telltale signs and precautions, FWi, 21 February, 2001
- Brussels to ban British meat exports, FWi, 21 February, 2001
- Foot-and-mouth threatens exports, FWi, 21 February, 2001
- Foot-and-mouth outbreak confirmed, FWi, 21 February, 2001
- Pigs show foot-and-mouth symptoms, FWi, 20 February, 2001