Questions remain over outbreak

By Christine McGourty
BBC News science correspondent

Who is to blame for this outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease? The Health and Safety Executive's report provides no simple answers.

Merial had been involved in "large scale production" of the strain

The Pirbright site is identified as the likely source. Nothing new there.

But was it the highly-respected pharmaceutical company Merial, or was it the pre-eminent government-funded Institute for Animal Health?

That remains unknown.

If the investigators have any suspicions they're not making them public yet.

But the report does highlight the huge differences in the amount of virus that each site was dealing with.

'Detective work'

The strain involved is known as 01BFS67. The Merial site was involved in large-scale production, while its neighbour, the Institute, was doing small-scale experiments involving a tiny amount.

Though it may not take much to start an outbreak.

Science could help provide an answer. Further detailed technical analysis is underway of the types of virus used at both organisations.

Those results should be available within a week and might identify more closely one or other organisation.

Another irony is that the molecular detective work that could identify who is responsible is being carried out by scientists at the very organisations that may be culpable.

All of them work towards protecting the health of animals and may not be happy at the HSE's choice of words in referring to possible "accidental or deliberate" transfer of material from the site by employees there.

Any deliberate release from either site would be truly shocking.

'Nothing new'

Experts in the field are perhaps the only ones not surprised that no easy answer has been forthcoming as to who is responsible.

In some previous foot-and-mouth outbreaks, the source has never been identified for certain.

The Royal Society though, in its report following the 2001 outbreak, does point out that occasional outbreaks in Europe have apparently been associated with virus escapes from laboratories or vaccine plants. So the problem may be nothing new.

And, while the investigations go on, both laboratories continue operating.

The Institute was working with a tiny amount of the virus

The Institute of Animal Health is playing a crucial role in analysing samples from the area around the outbreak, while Merial is busy producing some of the 300,000 vaccine units ordered this week as a precaution by the government, in case it decides to proceed with emergency vaccination.

Some might say it would seem wrong for Merial to profit from the outbreak if it were proven the company was involved in starting it.

Though experts have pointed out that, were negligence proven, any litigation costs might well outweigh any possible profits.

And with the number of outbreaks remaining small, the difficult decision over whether to vaccinate or not remains some way off.