Third of UK virus tests negative

More than two million sheep, pigs and cattle have been culled to halt disease

LONDON, England -- Thousands of animals may have been slaughtered needlessly after UK officials said many confirmed cases of foot-and-mouth disease proved negative.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) said about 450 of the 1,573 cases confirmed by vets in the field proved negative when blood tests were carried out at a laboratory in southern England, Britain's Press Association reported.

And with blood tests on the 250 cases where animals were slaughtered on suspicion of having the disease, only 46 cases (18.4%) later proved positive.

This means hundreds of farms could have been wrongly diagnosed, leading to the unnecessary culling of thousands of animals on those farms and on surrounding farms.

Britain has culled 2.5 million animals in an attempt to rid itself of foot-and-mouth, and the average number of new cases has dropped from 50 a day at the height of the epidemic to seven.

More than 1,500 cases in British livestock have been confirmed since it first broke out in late February, with 26 cases in the Netherlands, two in France and one in the Republic of Ireland.

If the farms were misdiagnosed, the mistakes will also have cost the British taxpayer millions of pounds in compensation and are likely to fuel anger among farmers who feel their healthy animals were culled for no reason.

A National Farmers' Union spokeswoman told CNN that it continued to support the slaughter policy and that the new figures could be misleading if the tests were carried out long after the animals had been slaughtered.

"This will be distressing for farmers, as has been the whole foot-and-mouth crisis. However, the scientific advice we have been given is that slaughtering animals within 24 hours has been the best way to combat the disease because definitive lab tests can take several days."

'Best scientific advice'

The tests for foot-and-mouth at Pirbright, Surrey, are considered highly effective by scientists, but a MAFF spokesman said negative results did not necessarily mean foot-and-mouth was not present on the farms.

It could have been that the animals were not in the stage of the disease where the virus would show up in tests, he said.

MAFF also said speed of slaughter had been crucial in the fight against foot-and-mouth and vets diagnosing animals in the field could not wait for laboratory results before moving to slaughter.

MAFF said in a statement: "We have acted on the best scientific advice throughout.

"Speed of slaughter is crucial to successful control and eradication of the disease.

"Waiting for test results to come through before taking action would risk not bringing the outbreak under control."

Last week UK Prime Minister Tony Blair said the programme to eradicate foot-and-mouth disease had "entered the home straight."

"We are getting the disease under control ... but it is not over yet," Blair told a news conference in his Downing Street office.

The government's chief scientific adviser, Professor David King, who for some weeks has been predicting that the disease would be drawing to a close by the summer, said he remained convinced that the epidemic was "fully under control."

Agriculture Minister Nick Brown said evidence suggested the disease peaked at the end of March but the government remained cautious.

Brown said the government expected to spend £600 million ($820 million) to compensate farmers for slaughtered animals.

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Foot-and-Mouth disease
Ministry of Agriculture
British government

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