Alarm as Dutch outbreak spreads

Dutch officials have vaccinated and culled animals

Three new cases of foot-and-mouth disease have been confirmed in the Netherlands, taking the total to 10 and sparking fears that efforts to contain the disease may have failed.

The Dutch Agriculture Ministry said the latest cases were in and around the Oene area in Gelderland, where several of the earlier cases were detected.

Until last week, Dutch officials had believed their early crackdown on the movement of animals had been enough to protect the country.

An outbreak on the UK scale would devastate Dutch agriculture

But the steady emergence of new cases - an average of more than one a day over the past week - is adding to fears that the virus is now on the loose.

One of the three new cases, in the village of Kootwijkerbroek, about 30km south-west of Oene, is sounding particular alarm bells for officials.

"All the cases are worrying, but this one in Kootwijkerbroek even more so," a spokesman for the Dutch agriculture ministry told Reuters news agency.

"Our tracing tests are not yet finding relationships between the cases," he added.

The Dutch were the first to seek - and gain - permission to vaccinate animals around infected farms, to create a firebreak against the infection spreading.

The programme is already under way, but the discovery of new cases could mean the policy has come too late to stop the virus leapfrogging the firebreak and spreading from farm to farm, as it has in the UK.

The UK has now followed the Netherlands in winning EU approval for vaccination, but has not yet begun the policy.

Foot-and-mouth cases

UK - more than 740

Netherlands - eight

France - two

Ireland - one

The UK Government has continued to insist that its mass burning of slaughtered animals is the answer - a policy which Dutch ministers criticised early on.

In France, where two cases have been confirmed, an uneasy waiting game is still going on amid hopes that the virus has been stopped in its tracks.

Ireland, which has one confirmed case, had some good news on Thursday, when several suspected cases were given the all-clear.

Vaccination facts

Not 100% reliable

10 days to take effect

May not be fully effective for three weeks

Repeat injections required

The UK's total has passed 740 cases and is still rising daily.

The EU experts' panel is currently debating vaccination requests from zoos which fear the disease could spread to grazing animals such as giraffes, antelope, camels or elephants.

Brussels is seeking the advice of the World Organisation for Animal Health, which determines the foot-and-mouth status of its 157 members.