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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 about several papers discussed at the meeting of the Institute for Animal Health that was held at the Royal Society in London, England on May 9, 2008 is presented. Topics include the tracking of the emergence and global spread of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), the difficulties presented in controlling FMD outbreaks in South Africa, the difficulties of dealing with endemic FMD and advances in FMD diagnostics.

The source of bovine tuberculosis was investigated in 31 herds in north-east England that experienced confirmed breakdowns between January 2002 and June 2004; nine of the herds had been restocked after the UK outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in 2001. In all but one of the breakdowns the most likely source of infection was identified as one or more purchased animals. In 17 of the breakdowns, reactor animals were traced to herds from which the same combination of spoligotype and variable number tandem repeats was isolated, and in five breakdowns a different spoligotype was isolated. The most likely sources were located in Wales and the west and north of England, and included a Cheshire herd that was the most likely source of nine of the breakdowns. Three breakdowns were traced to Irish imports. Reactors in five of the breakdowns included homebred as well as purchased animals, providing evidence for the likely spread of the disease within the herds. The lack of geographical clustering of molecular types pointed to the overwhelming source of infection being cattle that had been bought-in. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analysis was made that calculated the risk of disease for premises in the most heavily affected parts of the county of Cumbria during the foot-and-mouth disease epidemic in the UK in 2001. In over half the cases the occurrence of the disease was not directly attributable to a recently infected premises being located within 1.5 km. Premises more than 1.5 km from recently infected premises faced sufficiently high infection risks that culling within a 1.5 km radius of the infected premises alone could not have prevented the progress of the epidemic. A comparison of the final outcome in two areas of the county, south Penrith and north Cumbria, indicated that focusing on controlling the potential spread of the disease over short distances by culling premises contiguous to infected premises, while the disease continued to spread over longer distances, may have resulted in excessive numbers of premises being culled. Even though the contiguous cull in south Penrith appeared to have resulted in a smaller proportion of premises becoming infected, the overall proportion of premises culled was considerably greater than in north Cumbria, where, because of staff and resource limitations, a smaller proportion of premises contiguous to infected premises was culled. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the use of a novel approach to describe farm-level risk of disease relative to spatial and temporal proximity to other foot-and-mouth-affected farms during the 2001 foot-and-mouth epidemic in Cumbria, England.