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Farmers haunted by 1967 virus epidemic

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Ask any British farmer what the year 1967 means to them, and the response will be universal: foot and mouth disease.

Although outbreaks of the virus had been reported on an almost annual basis since 1839, the 1967 epidemic was by far the worst ever to have hit the British countryside.

More than 400,000 animals had to be slaughtered, and the agricultural business was brought to a standstill. Even now, more than 30 years later, many farmers are still haunted by the memory.

"It was devastating," said John Whittingham, a retired cattle farmer and former regional chairman of the National Farmers' Union. "There were funeral pyres everywhere.

"It was terrible for the farmers whose cattle had the disease, and even worse for the ones who had to sit around waiting to see if it would develop."

Out of control

The outbreak, which was later traced to a consignment of infected Argentinian lamb, began on October 25, 1967, on a farm near Oswestry in Shropshire.

The farm owner, Norman Ellis, had called in the local vet because three of his pigs had gone lame.

The vet's prognosis -- foot and mouth disease -- marked the beginning of a six-month nightmare that saw Oswestry reduced to a ghost town and the entire British farming industry pitched into crisis.

All of Ellis's livestock -- 67 pigs, 71 cattle and 47 sheep -- were immediately shot and burned, and for a while it looked as if the outbreak might have been contained.

Four days later, however, on October 29, a second case was reported, and within a week 23 farms were infected.

From there things spiralled out of control. The following week there were 104 reported cases, and the week after that the toll had risen to 222, all of them in the north and west of England.

"The government acted very quickly," recalls Whittingham, whose own farm escaped infection, despite being close to the centre of the outbreak.

"The problem was that the population of livestock per acre was higher in that part of Britain than any other, and so the disease spread very rapidly."

Infected farms were immediately sealed off, with police stationed outside the gates to prevent anyone entering or leaving the premises.

Public footpaths were closed, and hunting, shooting, fishing and horse racing all suspended.

That year's RAC cross-country motor rally was cancelled, and social life in infected areas ground to a halt. Even such seemingly innocuous activities as canoeing, football and hang-gliding were affected.

The epidemic peaked in November 1967 when more than 400 farms reported outbreaks in a single week.

After that it was gradually brought under control, but it was not until June 4, 1968 that the epidemic was officially declared to have ended.

By that time there had been a total of 2,364 outbreaks, and 433,987 animals had been slaughtered and burnt -- 211,825 cattle, 113,766 pigs, 108,345 sheep and 51 goats.

The epidemic devastated the region economically, although in the end few farmers went bankrupt.

"The Ministry of Agriculture was very fair with compensation payouts," said Whittingham. "Most people were able to carry on farming."

But he said he felt that the current outbreak, although far smaller in scale, could be more damaging to the farming community.

"In 1967 the farming industry was much stronger," he says. "It was more able to withstand the pressure.

"Today it is on its knees. This outbreak could really be the last straw for a lot of farmers."



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