Foot-and-Mouth Outbreak confirmed in U.K
Filed under: Environment, News | By: Lucy
Posted on: August 3, 2007 | 1 Comment
It has been confirmed that cattle on a farm in southern England are infected with foot-and-mouth disease. It was only 5 years ago that England was declared foot-and-mouth free after the last outbreak of this devastating disease which saw almost 7 million animals slaughtered.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has chaired a meeting of the government’s emergency committee COBRA, by telephone tonight (Friday) to discuss the development. Brown has also said he will return early from his holiday to chair another COBRA on Saturday at the Cabinet office.
“Our top priority is to prevent the spread of this disease in order to protect farmers’ stock,” said a spokeswoman for Brown’s office.
60 cattle on the farm near Guildford, in Surrey, has tested positive for the highly contagious disease which affects cows, horses, sheep and pigs. The disease does not infect humans.
The law states all the cattle on the farm will have to be culled. A 3-kilometer radius protection zone and a 10 kilometre surveillance zone around the farm has been put in place. DEFRA have placed a ban which stops the transportation of all hoofed animals, including pigs.
More news on the way when we get it.
CLICK HERE to keep updated with the latest news, share a comment or problems with products and services. Follow us on twitter or read more news.
The ‘Anderson Report’ of 2002 into the debacle of the ‘Foot & Mouth’ disease in 2001 highlighted that the lessons to be learned were that there were ‘gaps’ in the plan to combat the outbreak and that the ‘limited knowledge of farming practices had contributed to the spread of the disease. The problem is that this very same misunderstanding by government will allow the deadly ‘bird flu’ virus to infect the British population. In this respect the only person in the world today Professor Ken Shortridge Hon.MWIF, the world’s leading authority on the killer disease, is being stifled and government are not listening to him. He above all others knows how to stop this formidable killer that literally destroys the victim from within with the worst form of death that anyone can ever comprehend and where burst blood vessels are only one of many horrible effects to the human body. There are no cures as the virus mutates constantly. For Professor Shortridge was the person who first identified that the vius had jumped from animals to humans in 1987 and stopped through his direct actions, a most probable pandemic in Asia. For that unprecedented feat in science, he was awarded the Prince Mahidol Prize, Asia’s equivalent to the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Therefore there should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that Professor Shortridge words should be ultimately heeded around the world, for if not, we shall definitely suffer the consequences of the lack of this pre-eminent advice to save our lives (Men, women and children where the young are the most susceptible to the killer). In this respect Tony Blair and Downing Street did not take any notice of the late Professor Fred Brown Hon.MWIF, the world’s leading authority on ‘Foot & Mouth’ disease when they flew him in and out of the USA in 2001. It is to be dearly hoped therefore for all our sakes that Gordon Brown invites Professor Shortridge to Downing Street in the very near future so that we can prevent, without such intervention, what will eventual become millions of mortalities in Britain. The consequences for not doing so for the world-at-large are literally the deaths of hundreds of millions of people through the most agonizing way to die that anyone could ever imagine.
Dr. David Hill
World Innovation Foundation Charity
Bern, Switzerland
UK Postal Address: P O Box A60, Huddersfield,
HD1 1XJ, United Kingdom
UK Tel:0044(0)1484 537181
5th August 2007