PM calls disease crisis meeting

There has been no foot-and-mouth in NI since 1941

Northern Ireland's agriculture minister has been to a special foot-and-mouth disease crisis meeting at Downing Street on Tuesday evening.

Brid Rodgers was in Brussels when she received word that Prime Minister Tony Blair was to chair an emergency meeting of ministers to consider ways of combatting the spread of the disease.

Mrs Rodgers had earlier been asking the European Commission to give Northern Ireland special foot-and-mouth disease free status.

So far, the province seems to be free from the virus, which has appeared at 17 farms and abattoirs in England and Wales over the past week.

However, despite Brid Rodgers' appeal it is expected that the province will not be declared disease free for at least a week.

Ulster Farmers' Union deputy president John Gilliland fears may not be recognised as being free of foot-and-mouth disease before the UK.

Speaking on BBC Radio Ulster on Tuesday he said the province may fail to be given special status.

The EU has announced that its ban on UK animal product imports is to be extended to 9 March.

All-clear for farms

Meanwhile, the department said on Tuesday that three Northern Ireland pig farms which exported pigs to the abattoir in Essex, where foot-and-mouth was first detected have been given the all-clear after tests for the virus.

Brid Rodgers argued NI's case in Brussels

On Monday it announced a range of new controls at ports and airports in Northern Ireland to keep foot-and-mouth disease out.

More than 100 farms in the province are under movement restrictions as department vets examine animals recently imported from other parts of Britain.

Other controls in place include:

Posters warning of the risk

Personal disinfection facilities at Belfast International Airport

Disinfection facilities for vehicles at the Larne and Belfast ports

24-hour vehicle inspection at both ports

Livestock vehicles being inspected and sprayed with disinfectant

Certification of all products from animals at risk of foot-and-mouth

No animal product imports from UK

Joe McDonald, a spokesman for the Ulster Farmer's Union, said farmers wanted every precaution to be taken to reduce the risk of the infection spreading.

"Farmers are also being asked to disinfect vehicles moving on and off farms, and again, farmers seem to be responding to the message," he said.

"Hopefully this will only last for a number of days. It's very important that we treat this seriously until this passes."

'Fortress approach'

Earlier, the chief veterinary officer Bob McCracken said the measures restricting movement around farms had been painful.

But he told BBC Radio Ulster: "I think even more painful in many ways is the apprehension and fear about what could happen, today or tomorrow."

Warning farmers against complacency, he said: "I would again appeal to farmers to continue to be vigilant and to report all cases that look in any way to be like foot-and-mouth disease.

"Secondly, they must treat the farm like a fortress, letting nothing in and nothing out, and letting nobody in and nobody out as far as is practically possible"

There were fears last Friday that a cow which died in mid-Ulster had been infected with foot-and-mouth. An eight-kilometre exclusion zone was placed around the farm.

However, vets said it was 99% certain the animal did not have the disease.

Humans are not affected by foot-and-mouth although they can carry it, but the highly contagious virus, which affects pigs, sheep and cattle, is one of the most feared by farmers.

The Irish Government ban on the importation of all animal products from the United Kingdom, including the province, remains in place.

Irish police and customs officers are patrolling the border to enforce it and all vehicles have to drive over disinfected mats at the border.