Foot and Mouth Disease Outbreak Tied To British Lab

Foot and mouth disease, which can devastate cattle and sheep herds, appears to be linked to a strain of the disease that exists only at a research institution in the British countryside. It appears that there was a breach of security enabling the disease to escape into the countryside and infect nearby herds.

The strain of foot-and-mouth identified is not one normally found in animals but is used in vaccine production and in diagnostic laboratories.

In a statement, Defra said: "The present indications are that this strain is a 01 BFS67-like virus, isolated in the 1967 foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in Great Britain."

Merial voluntarily halted vaccine production as a precaution.

BBC science correspondent David Shukman said that if the virus did escape from the Pirbright laboratory, the question to ask was how.

He said: "Like the manufacture of any vaccine to defend against a virus, this one used samples of live virus in the production process.

"Experts speculate that either it escaped through the ventilation or possibly an employee carried it out accidentally on a boot or clothing."

The British government is trying to contain the damage and limit its impact economically. It's banned all meat exports. The British government is moving faster than they did in the last outbreak, which may reduce the spread of the disease among herds around the country and limit the need to cull herds.

The 2001 outbreak of the disease in the UK required culling herds of nearly 10 million animals and caused billions of dollars in damage. Hopefully, the British government can contain the damage, and the investigation into how the pathogen escaped the lab will be discovered so that it cannot happen again.

It is quite possible that someone did not take the proper precautions upon leaving the lab and allowed the pathogen to escape into the environment.