Britain's Foot-and-Mouth Disease

Strikes Again

The UK is struggling to contain their foot-and-mouth outbreak and understand its origin. The contagious disease infects cloven-hoofed animals like sheep, cattle, and pigs. In the last week two Surrey farms in UK have had to severely cull their cattle herds.

Countries are vigilant about keeping foot-and-mouth at bay, but the threat is always real and well appreciated, not necessarily by city-dwellers and supermarket shoppers, but definitely in agricultural and government circles. In rural areas you're likely to hear or read about 'such and such disease', which is "the foot-and-mouth disease" of apples/pears/elm/fish, etc.

Maintaining your status as a foot-and-mouth disease free country is critical to agricultural exports. Countries like Australia and New Zealand brag that they haven't had the virus in centuries. New Zealand actually claims they've "never had an outbreak". But had they contained an outbreak, it might be in their best interest not to speak of it. The Australian Department of Agriculture carries a general warning about severe consequences of an (unspecified) FMD outbreak on their website.

• "$8 million (Australian) per day cost in control and eradication costs alone (not taking into consideration the effects of the immediate loss of wool, meat and dairy product markets)."
• "$8 billion dollars out of $12 billion dollars worth of agricultural production being lost in the first year"
• "the loss of 20 000 to 25 000 jobs"
• "average cost to each farmer $70 000 in lost income"

The UK's latest outbreak was preceded by one in 2001 and another in 1967. The outbreak that started in England in February, 2001, lasted through October. News of it was finally eclipsed by 9-11. It cost the nation in the range of 8 billion pounds in compensation.

When Argentina edged towards ridding their herds of foot-and-mouth in the 1990's, newspaper stories in Australia warned of the potential economic impact on Australia's impending beef exports. Newspapers in various countries routinely trot out warnings about how feral pigs, wild animals, and domesticated imports from other countries are a threat to national agriculture.

People have also been accused of using the threat of FMD disease for extortion. Others rumor that governments consider the use of FMD by terrorists and that Russia and the US prepared for possible FMD bioterrorism perpetrated by one another during the Cold War.

Airborne, Waterborne, or Traipsed In?

Researchers who modeled the UK 1967 and 2001 outbreaks suggest that both of these were started by airborne virus. Researchers in the UK been studying the dynamics of airborne infection to better prevent and manage outbreaks. The Institute for Animal Health in Pirbright, Woking, Surrey, UK, published an article last month reporting on the susceptibility of sheep exposed to airborne foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) strain O/UKG/2001. (Veterinary Journal, July 11). Other authors, R. Sellers and J. Gloster, of the same institute, reviewed the literature and found that exposure from different strains, in different species and individuals, along different infection routes varied the rate of infection (Veterinary Journal, May 15, 2007), with cattle being the most susceptible to infection, followed by pigs and sheep.Meteorological conditions and droplet features, less well known dynamics, may also contribute to infection.

The virus tagged for this outbreak is O1BFS67, similiar to the 1967 strain. It was being produced at two facilities, the Institute for Animal Health (IAH) and Merial Animal Health Ltd (Merial) -- Merial is the lab investigators from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs DEFRA are focusing on. As opposed to the 1967 and 2001 cases, the Health and Safety Commission are focused not on the airborne route, but the water or clothing route of infection. There is a stream running between the two infected farms and the organization is investigating the possibility of surface water might be a factor however investigators doubt that run-off could have caused the disease.

Instead, they say "release by human movement must also be considered a real possibility. Further investigation of the above issues is required and is being urgently pursued." The Guardian reports that a worker from Merial has an "allotment" (small leased vegetable garden?) near one of the farms.

Vaccines are being developed. Animals are forbidden from being transported. Woking, Surrey has a public notice out asking people to report any stray dogs they see. The UAE, China, Russia, South Africa, the EU and the US have banned imports of cloven-hoofed animals from the UK. And Prime Minister Gordon Brown has apparently returned to Downing Street from Chequers (not reading The Pet Goat) to chair meetings of Cobra, the Civil Contigencies Committee, according to the Guardian.