Farm virus: Ban on moving livestock

The farm at Heddon-on-the-Wall, Northumbria has five-mile exclusion zone

A week-long ban on livestock movement has followed the closure of all marts and abattoirs, in reponse to the escalating foot-and-mouth crisis.

The announcement by the Livestock and Auctioneers Association was made as health chiefs singled out an outbreak at Heddon-on-the-Wall, Northumberland, as the likely source of the disease.

Assembly Agriculture Minister Carwyn Jones

Welsh Assembly Rural Affairs Minister Carwyn Jones said the next seven days would be a "critical" time for ensuring that Welsh farms remain free of the virus.

Speaking in Cardiff, he said that he was optimistic that a UK-wide ban on the export of animals could be lifted in Wales, providing there was no detection of the disease when the livestock movement ban expires at 1700GMT next Friday.

"It will be possible for people to obtain licences to move animals only if it's shown safe to do so," he said.

"It may be possible for us in Wales to look at lobbying to ensure that the present ban on exporting animals and animal products does not continue - in other words for us to be able to export from Wales even though exporting would still be banned elsewhere in the UK."

Visitors are urged to stay away from Snowdonia

Meanwhile, Mr Jones appealed for members of the public to avoid walking in the countryside - particularly with dogs.

Despite there being no reported cases in Wales, RSPB reservices have closed, the Brecon Beacons and Snowdonia national parks have already urged visitors to stay away for the time being and hunting and some racing has been cancelled.

At the suspected outbreak source in Heddon-on-the-Wall, pigs on the farm are being slaughtered after a five-mile animal exclusion zone was established on Thursday night.

The Ministry of Agriculture said the Northumberland farm was known to have recently delivered pigs to the Cheale Meats abattoir in Essex, where the outbreak was first confirmed on Tuesday sending the farming industry into crisis once again.

Vets are at the farm testing dozens of animals, while investigations continue at an estimated 600 farms believed to have supplied the Essex abattoir in recent weeks.

Livestock marts were deserted across Wales

The confirmation of new foot-and-mouth cases at the Heddon-on-the-Wall farm and another farm in Essex bring the total number of definite cases up to five.

A ministry spokesman said: "The disease appears to have been at this farm for some time before the Essex case was confirmed.

"We believe that this farm could be the source of the disease."

Click here to see exclusion zone areas.

A pig farm in Aberdeenshire, which has not yet been named, is one of a number in Scotland now being tested for suspected foot-and-mouth disease.

As the disease spreads, two farms in Buckinghamshire and the Isle of Wight have exclusion zones around them, and restrictions are in place at two farms in Gloucestershire and Yorkshire.

Hygiene controls

Woodchester Park, a National Trust park near Stroud in Gloucestershire, has been closed to the public following a suspected outbreak at a nearby farm.

Meanwhile, UN health officials have warned that foot-and-mouth disease has become a global crisis.

Any contamination in the environment can be spread by people or vehicles or other animals

Professor Jim Scudamore

The chief of the animal health service at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation warned that the type of the disease discovered in Essex had reached pandemic proportions.

Government Chief Veterinary officer Professor Jim Scudamore has said precautions were necessary because infected animals "will excrete or pass the virus out in all sorts of tissues, they can breathe it out, so any contamination in the environment can be spread by people or vehicles or other animals".

Foot-and-mouth, a viral disease which causes blisters on the mouth and hooves of livestock, is highly contagious but poses little threat to humans.

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