RE: Ministry''''s vet admits foot and mouth failure

Originally from: PoppaC
                        
Hi All, more questions.

http://www.warmwell.com/fmdchronology.html

On 15th February 2001 pigs from Bobby Waugh's farm were taken by lorry to Cheale Meats abattoir in Essex. They were slaughtered on Friday the 16th. At the weekend, the pigs from the Isle of Wight and Buckinghamshire arrived. On 19 February 2001, Craig Kirby an official veterinary surgeon working for the government's Meat Hygiene Service at the abattoir saw blisters on pigs from the Isle of Wight and Buckinghamshire, which had arrived at the lairage at the weekend, and suspected FMD. The following day, tests at Pirbright officially confirmed that this was indeed foot-and-mouth. It was decided to inspect Burnside Farm. A five mile exclusion zone was established around Bobby Waugh's farm on 23 February 2001 when FMD was pronounced (by Mr Dring) to be in the pigs. Lets look at this in detail:

Thursday 15th Feb 2001 –
Pigs leave BW's farm and arrive at CM abattoir

Friday 16th Feb 2001 –
BW's pigs slaughtered. I would presume that the pens that these pigs were in would have been cleaned and sanitised.

Sat/Sun 17th/18th Feb 2001 –
pigs from the Isle of Wight and Buckinghamshire arrived. Were they put into the same pen/building as BW's pigs that had been slaughtered on the 16th?

Monday 19th Feb 2001 –
Craig Kirby an official veterinary surgeon working for the government's Meat Hygiene Service at the abattoir saw blisters on pigs from the Isle of Wight and Buckinghamshire,,,and suspected FMD.

Tuesday 20th Feb 2001 –
Pirbright officially confirmed that this was indeed foot-and-mouth.

http://www.defra.gov.uk/animalh/diseases/notifiable/disease/fmd.htm
"The interval between exposure to infection and the appearance of symptoms varies between twenty-four hours and ten days, or even longer. The average time, under natural conditions, is three to six days."

http://www.exam.net/public/hottopic/rs-gm_footmouth.asp?sessionid=
"The average incubation period of the virus varies but is generally around 3–8 days. During this time, an animal is infected and contagious, but doesn't show any signs of the disease for the first few days." http://aleffgroup.com/avisfmd/A010-fmd/mod1/0100-incubation-period.html
"Incubation Period
The incubation period for FMD is conventionally considered to be between 2 and 14 days. This is usually the period around which control regulations and international trade are based. In fact, it depends on the dose of virus to which the animal has been exposed, the strain of the virus and the route of infection. Following a low dose of exposure the incubation period may be relatively long, i.e., around 10 days, whereas with a high dose it can be as short as 2 days. Thus, when a low amount of virus enters a holding, the incubation period in the index case is likely to be relatively long. Conversely, when the index cases have increased the amount of virus in the environment, the incubation period is likely to be much less in the next group of animals to be infected. It can be expected, therefore, that once the disease has begun to spread within a herd or flock the incubation period will be, for example, around 2–4 days in cattle and sheep and 1–2 days longer in pigs." http://www.fmdinfo.org/dsp/dsp_locationContent.cfm?locationId=896
"Symptoms:
The most obvious signs of the disease are excessive slobbering, a lack of appetite and lameness. Affected animals may experience a sudden rise in temperature, followed by blisters in the mouth or other areas of tender skin (e.g., udders in females, nostrils, on the feet). Soft tissues under the hoof are often inflamed and the animal can become lame and may even shed its hooves. Eating becomes painful, and many animals often go off feed, which results in weight loss, declined milk production for dairy cattle and goals, and declined meat production. "

So less than two days after the IoW and Bucks pigs arrive it is noticed that they are infected?

A different report and inconsistencies:

http://www.warmwell.com/footmoutheye.html

On the morning of Monday 19 February 2001, Craig Kirby, 29, an official veterinary surgeon working for the government's Meat Hygiene Service at Cheale Meats abattoir in Little Warley, near Brentwood in Essex, was carrying out a routine inspection of pigs delivered from Buckinghamshire and the Isle of Wight. He had already noticed the previous Friday that some of the pigs were unusually lethargic. Now he saw blisters, possible signs of foot-and-mouth, a disease he was too young ever to have seen before, because the last major epidemic in Britain had taken place in 1967–8, before he was born. Mr Kirby said later that he was 'stunned' and 'shocked'. At 11.36 am he informed a senior official at the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF), then halted all operations at the abattoir. I had always hoped that I would never see the disease" he said:"but I was sure it was foot-and-mouth, and I had to act quickly, because it spreads at a frightening speed". Ministry vets immediately identified farms in Buckinghamshire, the Isle of Wight and Yorkshire from which the sick pigs had originated. A bull on a farm belonging to Cheale Meats next to the abattoir was confirmed with FMD, and destroyed immediately, along with 49 other cattle. Within hours five-mile movement restrictions had been imposed round the farms in Buckinghamshire and the Isle of Wight. The farm in Yorkshire was placed under surveillance. Arrangements were made for all the animals at the abattoir and on surrounding farms to be destroyed. The following day, after tests at the government's official FMD laboratory in Pirbright, Surrey, MAFF's chief veterinary officer Jim Scudamore officially confirmed that this was indeed foot-and-mouth. Apart from a minor outbreak in the Isle of Wight in 1981, it was the first serious incidence of the disease in Britain for thirty four years.

"He had already noticed the previous Friday that some of the pigs were unusually lethargic." So when did the pigs arrive? Was it during the weekend or was it on the Friday? From this report they were obviously infected when they arrived, either on the Friday or during the weekend!

Which "farm in Yorkshire was placed under surveillance" and why? (I am assuming they meant Bobby Waugh's farm)

"Ministry vets immediately identified farms in Buckinghamshire, the Isle of Wight and Yorkshire from which the sick pigs had originated." Who were the owners of these farms and why were they not identified in either report?

"* The foot-and-mouth virus has been identified in seven main strains, and dozens of sub-strains. Pan-Asian 0, the latest to appear, was first identified in India in the early 1990s. It first spread westward to the Middle East, then to the Far East. Itt reached south-eastern Europe in 1996, in the epidemic in Macedonia and the southern Balkans. It first reached western Europe when it came to Britain in 2001." "There was equally no evidence to support the view, also fostered by MAFF, that the pigs had become infected by eating swill containing contaminated meat imported from abroad, obtained either from Chinese restaurants in Newcastle, or from a nearby British army barracks. The Albemarle barracks did use meat from Uruguay (a country with FMD), under EU procurement rules which require the British army to buy meat from the cheapest, usually non-British sources. But although it was politically convenient to identify pig swill as the cause of the epidemic (the government would later introduce severe restrictions on feeding swill to pigs), no proof that this was the original infectious agent was ever produced." "In fact circumstantial evidence increasingly suggested that the epidemic had not originated at Heddon at all; that foot-and-mouth had probably been around for months before it infected the Waughs' pigs; and that the species initially infected had been sheep, in which the signs of FMD are often hard to detect." http://farmtalking.org/news-waugh-9&10.htm
"At 3.45pm, JSS re-examined Mr Waugh's evidence.

Mr Waugh was asked how he believed the disease got into his herd and replied, "I don't know but its been in the sheep for a long time. I'd burned some sheep in my farm just prior to this that belonged to a friend of Mr Leadbitter.""

Questions:
Had any of the army personnel or vehicles returned from Macedonia or other areas of the southern Balkins in the months previous to the supposed outbreak of FMD and had they contaminated the livestock in the vicinity with unclean equipment? Who were the owners of the farms in the IoW and Bucks where the infected pigs came from? Quick thought! Who owned the truck that transported the pigs from Bobby Waugh's and was it the same truck that brought the pigs from the IoW and Bucks farms? Was it cleaned out before/after each haul? Hoo Roo
Norm

Originally from: Bill
                        
Incubation can be up to 21 days.

Detection by ELISA testing is minimum of 5 days, anything up to 28 days.

Typical incubation in cattle after contagious contact is 3 days.

"Lameness" is not the best indication, "vertigo" is a better indication and more or less exclusive to FMD.

Historically the disease has only been recognised when it enters pigs, as in 1967 and 2001.
                        

Originally from: PoppaC
                        
Thanks for that information Bill, I am new to all this but was around in 67–68. Actually that is the period I met my missus and eventually married her maybe that's why I am a bit vague about it all.

Hoo Roo

Norm

Originally from: coleen
                        
So if the pigs from the IoW were suspect (could the below account from 1981) perhaps be possible?
.
Airborne spread of the disease takes place readily. The prevailing meteorological conditions and local topography determine the distance that the disease can travel and this may be considerable. For example, circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that the outbreak on the Isle of White in 1981 resulted form the airborne spread of the virus from Brittany in northern France. www.seelb.org.uk/news/seelb-news/ viewnews.cfm?newsid

Did someone import meat, animals even, illegally from France. Keeping in mind the account last week that we illegally import seven and a half thousand tons of meat into the UK every year, and not ALL bush meat. We illegally import more pork chicken beef etc, then France and Uruguay's sell us legally..

I am coming to the belief that there will never be any answers. I think that fmd was here long before it was ever really detected so therefore an answer is impossible. Perhaps the catalyst was BW or Cheales in Essex – although I tend to think that it was humans who did the most damage. The vets, army, defra operatives I think they took the virus from farm to farm. I do not mean intentionally – but just in the manner they were operating under. By the time the balloon went up everyone was running round like headless chickens and taking fmd with them (although not to the extent I first thought) A whole spiral of events then took over. The election was looming, tourism was suffering, farming within itself could not agree on the correct procedure it was a mess. Someone gave the signal to 'cull' and that's what happened. Add that to a Government who does it's own thing and seldom backs down – we have the recipe for what took place.

I have reached this theory by looking at everything MAFF/DEFRA did once any outbreak was suspected and announced.. They never stopped the movement of animals, they did not stop auctions (until days into the outbreak) the restriction zone was far too small – in other words they knew that fmd from animal to animal was not the main concern. Why? Because they already knew of cases within sheep (perhaps other animals for all we know) and they had managed to keep the lid and the spread of it minimal and secret. It was only when it arrived at Cheales that the lid was blown right off.

Compare all of this as to how they go OTT over any threat (real or unreal) regarding a terrorist threat. They take NO chances they shut down if the need arises.

When Duncan spoke to Doctor Keith Sumption Tropical Animal Health he told about an experiment where wild pigs (I think) but the crux of the matter was that the pigs all housed together only 1 showed and went on to develop fmd. So he disclaimed the virus spreading through pigs like wildfire and animals spreading it like vast plumes of smoke, he also contested the distance that fmd could travel.

If it was so rife and such a threat to the animals then 80% (hope this figure is correct) of the animals taken out as DC, would not have tested clear.

I firmly believe that animals if fit healthy and not living in over crowded conditions can survive fmd and that not all of them will go onto develop it. So I still do think that fmd was here before it turned up at Cheales and BW. I hold the view that he fitted the perfect scenario as being the one to start the outbreak simply because there always has to be a villain to blame. You have got to lay the blame for killing millions of animals and more importantly the billions it all cost at someone's door, especially if you were aware of it before and did not act.

I believe that if it was SO rife then it would still have been spreading and still perhaps with us. It would have surely kicked off again somewhere. We did not stop it, we only killed as many animals as the 'money' allowed. Not every animal was tested...

One Vet told us that they were testing the sheep on the Cumbrian fells at the so called height of the outbreak – the sheep were testing negative. Shame that Vet never questioned the regime at the time. Look at our sheep, smack bang in it the middle of it all – tested clear. One farm of dairy cattle also survived. Why? Because he never allowed anyone on his farm (as we did not) no vehicles nothing, also perhaps because fmd does not travel as D KS and other have said.

I would gladly put all this behind me if we could move forward and introduce vaccination. We have to keep on fighting for that. If we learn and achieve nothing else then that would do me.

Coleen

Coleen