Mass cull in Netherlands

Dutch officials have vaccinated and culled animals

The Dutch Agriculture Ministry has announced plans to slaughter 80,000 animals, after the number of confirmed cases of foot-and-mouth disease in the Netherlands rose to 10.

A disaster situation of national importance

Prime Minister Wim Kok

The three new cases were all in the eastern province of Gelderland, at farms in Oosterwolde and Kootwijkerbroek, near to several earlier outbreaks.

All cattle within a two-kilometre radius around the new sites will be destroyed in an effort to stop the disease from spreading.

The new cases have sparked fears that efforts to contain the disease may have failed.

Almost every day another village is infected. Almost every day the minister says he still has it under control

Dirk Duijzer, farmers' leader

Until last week, Dutch officials had believed their early crackdown on the movement of animals and a vaccination programme had been enough to protect the country from the spread of foot-and-mouth.

Dutch farmers have criticised their government's response to the outbreak.

"Almost every day another village is infected," said Dirk Duijzer, director-general of the main farmers' union. "Almost every day the minister says he still has it under control."

Alarm bells

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 said.

"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.

An outbreak on the UK scale would devastate Dutch agriculture

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

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.

Uneasy wait

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.

Foot-and-mouth cases

UK - more than 770

Netherlands - 10

France - two

Ireland - one

The UK's total has passed 770 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.