NI sheep killed over disease fears

A flock of sheep is being slaughtered

Northern Ireland Agriculture minister Brid Rodgers has ordered the slaughter of sheep in south Armagh because of a suspected case of foot-and-mouth disease.

The sheep were imported into Northern Ireland from a market near Carlisle.

An exclusion zone has been set up around the south Armagh farm, which straddles the Irish border.

Department vets ordered the immediate slaughter of the flock at Meigh after some of the sheep became lame.

Mrs Rodgers said the animal's carcasses would be incinerated after blood tests had been carried out.

Brid Rodgers: "The sheep are now being slaughtered as a precaution"

The results of the tests are expected within 48 hours.

Speaking at Stormont on Wednesday, Mrs Rodgers called for calm.

She said: "I need hardly say that this is an extremely worrying development.

"Our chief veterinary officer spent yesterday at the Standing Veterinary Committee in Brussels preparing for Northern Ireland to be freed from the export controls which presently apply across the whole of the UK.

"The chances of our being able to pursue that at least in the short term now appear to be much weaker."

Meanwhile, the Ulster Farmers' Union has urged the government to establish as soon as possible whether or not the sheep in south Armagh are infected.

The union's president, Douglas Rowe, said farmers now had to reinforce their safeguards.

The police in the Republic of Ireland have confirmed that about 400 extra offficers are to assist with border checks and disease control measures.

Meanwhile 1,300 sheep have been destroyed in County Wexford as a precaution against foot and mouth.

They had been imported from Devon in England.

The current outbreak of foot-and-mouth was first discovered at a farm in Essex last Monday. Twenty-two other farms and abattoirs in England and Wales have since been confirmed as infected.

Farmers had been hoping Northern Ireland could gain an all-clear status, separate from the rest of the UK, so that the province's European exports could resume.

Previous scare

More than 100 farms in the province have been placed under movement restrictions because they had recently imported livestock from Britain.

Ulster Farmers' Union deputy president John Gilliland said farmers should not panic, but he warned them to keep strictly to the department's control measures.

"Keep people off your farm and put disinfectant down. Treat it like a fortress," he said.

Meanwhile, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has closed four public nature reserves.

They are on islands on Lower Lough Erne in Fermanagh, Portmore Lough reserve near Aghalee in County Antrim, Rathlin Island and the Belfast Lough reserve.

Humans are not affected by foot-and-mouth disease although they can carry it.

There has not been an outbreak of the disease in Northern Ireland since 1941.