DarkAngel
Soul Stealer
- Joined
- Nov 9, 2000
- Posts
- 8,012
The study, conducted by a team of scientists from the University of Edinburgh's Center
for Tropical Veterinary Medicine and published in the journal Nature, said the
government's battle against foot-and-mouth disease was being won.
It is the first independent confirmation that Britain had turned the corner in battling the
highly contagious disease.
But scientists from the Center for Tropical Veterinary Medicine also warned that
though the livestock disease had been contained, there was still need for continued
aggressive action to prevent a resurgence.
"Any intensification or relaxation of control efforts could greatly affect the final scale
and duration of the epidemic," the study said.
Spreading the Infection
The scientists based their study on the "case-reproduction ratio," a calculation that
measures how many new cases was being generated by each farm already afflicted
by the disease.
For an outbreak to be considered "under control," the "case-reproduction ratio" should
be less than one, a figure that was reached on March 30, according to the study.
At the start of the epidemic, the scientists found that each afflicted farm was
generating three new cases.
The containment was a result of the government's culling program as well as early
detection measures, the study found.
Silence of the Lambs
The news came more than a week after David King, the government's chief scientific
adviser, announced the epidemic was "fully under control."
Since foot-and-mouth was officially confirmed on Feb 20, animals on more than 1,500
farms were afflicted by the disease, sparking off a mass culling that fueled anger in
the British farming community, which has lost nearly four percent of its livestock.
Although foot-and-mouth is virtually harmless to humans, fears of exposure to the
virus has taken a toll on the British tourism industry over the past two months as
foreign and domestic tourists have stayed away from rural areas. The British tourism
industry is expected to have lost nearly $3.6 billion in cancellations.
The worst affected were British farmers, who had to stand by while thousands of their
healthy animals were slaughtered in order to meet international trade standards.
Under European Union regulations, culling animals is the only way to earn a "disease
free" status on world markets.
for Tropical Veterinary Medicine and published in the journal Nature, said the
government's battle against foot-and-mouth disease was being won.
It is the first independent confirmation that Britain had turned the corner in battling the
highly contagious disease.
But scientists from the Center for Tropical Veterinary Medicine also warned that
though the livestock disease had been contained, there was still need for continued
aggressive action to prevent a resurgence.
"Any intensification or relaxation of control efforts could greatly affect the final scale
and duration of the epidemic," the study said.
Spreading the Infection
The scientists based their study on the "case-reproduction ratio," a calculation that
measures how many new cases was being generated by each farm already afflicted
by the disease.
For an outbreak to be considered "under control," the "case-reproduction ratio" should
be less than one, a figure that was reached on March 30, according to the study.
At the start of the epidemic, the scientists found that each afflicted farm was
generating three new cases.
The containment was a result of the government's culling program as well as early
detection measures, the study found.
Silence of the Lambs
The news came more than a week after David King, the government's chief scientific
adviser, announced the epidemic was "fully under control."
Since foot-and-mouth was officially confirmed on Feb 20, animals on more than 1,500
farms were afflicted by the disease, sparking off a mass culling that fueled anger in
the British farming community, which has lost nearly four percent of its livestock.
Although foot-and-mouth is virtually harmless to humans, fears of exposure to the
virus has taken a toll on the British tourism industry over the past two months as
foreign and domestic tourists have stayed away from rural areas. The British tourism
industry is expected to have lost nearly $3.6 billion in cancellations.
The worst affected were British farmers, who had to stand by while thousands of their
healthy animals were slaughtered in order to meet international trade standards.
Under European Union regulations, culling animals is the only way to earn a "disease
free" status on world markets.
