Swine fever slaughter mounts

The outbreak is the first in the UK since 1986

By environment correspondent Alex Kirby

As attempts to control the United Kingdom swine fever outbreak are intensifying, with thousands more pigs facing slaughter on precautionary grounds.

Ministry of Agriculture staff have already killed many of the 6,000 animals known to have come from the source of the outbreak.

But 10,000 more pigs are in line for slaughter, because they are suspected contacts.

One farmer says that if the outbreak is not quickly traced, the number that would have to be slaughtered is incalculable.

Killing starts

The outbreak began on a pig-breeding unit in Norfolk, in eastern England, and has been found in animals it supplied to two nursery units in Suffolk and Essex.

The ministry says it has completed the slaughter of about 3,500 pigs at the Suffolk farm, and has begun killing 1,500 more in Norfolk. About 950 in Essex await slaughter.

Numbers to die could be "incalculable"

But it says the Norfolk farm supplied five more nursery units, and it will soon start killing the animals there, without waiting for the results of tests, because there is a danger they could also be infected.

A spokeswoman could not give the locations of the five farms or the numbers of pigs they housed.

A pig industry source told BBC News Online he thought many more pigs than the 6,000 on the three East Anglian farms would have to die.

He said: "The Norfolk farm is generating about 250 piglets a week, and sending them out to nursery units.

"On the most optimistic estimate, I think we're talking about another 10,000 animals that will need to be destroyed.

Beyond reckoning

"And that's assuming that the transmission of the disease is vertical - in other words, that it's just spreading in the pigs as they move from one farm to another.

"If there's lateral transmission, with infection being spread on vehicles, or by humans or birds, or in some other way, that's something else again.

"If that is happening, then the worst case, the total number to be killed, is something you just cannot calculate."

Swine fever is harmless to humans

There are about 12 million pigs in the UK. This is the first outbreak in the country of the highly contagious viral disease, which is harmless to people, for 14 years.

Under EU law pigs on farms affected with classic swine fever must be destroyed.

The disease can be transmitted directly from animal to animal, and through feeding pigs waste food containing infected meat. It can also be passed on by transporting pigs in contaminated vehicles.

Import bans

Symptoms of swine fever in pigs are loss of appetite and high temperature. The animals may also have red or purple areas of discoloration on the skin.

Belgium and the Netherlands have both banned imports of live pigs from the UK to try to keep swine fever out of their herds. Millions of animals in mainland Europe died in an outbreak in 1998.

Spanish television has reported that a ban has been imposed there on imports of live pigs, fresh meat and all pork products.