August 13, 2007

UK arranges massive vaccination for FMD

The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said vaccination is at the forefront of disease policy control in accordance with contingency planning arrangements for foot-and-mouth-disease (FMD) outbreak which was detected in August 3.

The Forward Vaccination Centre was in place by August 6 outside of the Surveillance Zone with teams in place ready to vaccinate should the decision be taken to do so.

The vaccination would depend on risk assessments by UK's veterinary authorities Vaccination is used as a disease control measure in addition to the slaughter policies as steps in eradicating the disease.

UK has not proceeded with vaccinations at this time due to ongoing epidemiology investigations.

The National Emergency Epidemiology Group who has been investigating the outbreak said it is very likely that the source of infection is the Pirbright site where Merial Animal Health Ltd and the Institute for Animal Health are located.

The report goes on to identify the possible mechanisms for spread of the virus from the Pirbright site.

It concludes that the risk of spread of infection out of Surrey through movements of undisclosed infection in sheep during the risk period is very low. It sets out the most likely scenario that while there is a risk of further cases in the same area, it is unlikely that infection from the original release of the virus will occur, however, further cases could arise from secondary spread.