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A case of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) on a cattle farm in Normandy, Surrey, was confirmed on Friday August 3, 2007, the first case in the UK since 2001. The infection was detected nearby on a second farm on August 6. On September 12, FMD was confirmed on a farm approximately 20 km from Normandy in Egham, and this was followed by cases on five more farms in that area in the next three weeks. The majority of the infected farms consisted of multiple beef cattle holdings in semi-urban areas. In total, 1578 animals were culled on the infected farms, and FMD virus infection was confirmed in 278 of them by the detection of viral antigen, genome or antibodies to the virus, or by clinical signs. This paper describes the findings from animal inspections on the infected farms, including the estimated ages of the FMD lesions and the numbers of animals infected, It also summarises the test results from samples taken for investigation, including the detection of preclinically viraemic animals by using real-time reverse transcriptase-PCR. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) occurred in Surrey on August 3, 2007. A Great Britain-wide ban on livestock movements was implemented immediately. This coincided with the start of seasonal sheep movements off the hills in Scotland; the majority of these animals are sold via markets. The ban therefore posed severe economic and animal- welfare hardships if it was to last through September and beyond. The Scottish Government commissioned an analysis to assess the risk of re-opening markets given the uncertainty about whether FMD had entered Scotland. Tracing of livestock moved from within the risk zone in England between July 16 and August 3 identified contact chains to 12 Scottish premises; veterinary field inspections found a further three unrecorded movements. No signs of infection were found on these holdings. Under the conservative assumption that a single unknown Scottish holding was infected with FMD, an estimate of the time-dependent probability of Scotland being FMD free given no detection was made. Analyses indicated that if FMD was not detected by early to mid-September then it was highly probable that Scotland was FMD free. Risk maps were produced to visualise the potential spread of FMD across Scotland if it was to spread either locally or via market sales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information on several topics discussed at the Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories Agency (AHVLA) conference on bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) disease held in Surrey, England on September 13-15, 2011 is presented. Topics include history and active monitoring of the disease as well as the variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD) outbreak. The event featured Bob Will of the National CJD Surveillance Unit in Edinburgh, and Gerald Wells, retired neuropathology head of AHVLA.

In this article the author discusses the report of Sir Iain Anderson on the governance and funding of the Institute for Animal Health's (AIH) research site at Pirbright in Surrey, England. The author states that the facility failed to meet international standards due to insufficient funds. Moreover, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) has pledged to continue financing the facility so that it can provide world-class research.