foot and mouth

Foot and mouth virus spreads to wild deer
Anthony Browne, environment correspondent
Sunday April 22, 2001
The Observer

The foot and mouth virus has passed into Britain's wild deer population, making the Government's policy of mass slaughter of farmyard livestock futile.

There have been several cases of vets clinically identifying the disease in wild deer, some of which have died from it. There have also been many reports from Devon, Cumbria and Northumberland of deer limping and exhibiting other unusual behaviour linked to the disease. Veterinary experts say it is impossible to vaccinate or cull wild deer and once infected they will act as a reservoir for the virus, repeatedly re-infecting livestock. It will make it almost impossible for Britain to rid itself of the virus, until it dies out naturally in wild deer, which could take years.

Last week a roe deer was found dead at Kirk House Farm near Penrith, which had already been confirmed as having foot and mouth in livestock. Local vet Matt Coulston, of Frame Swift and Partners, identified lesions on all four feet and in its mouth. 'It had signs consistent with foot and mouth disease,' he told The Observer. 'There have been loads of people round here reporting dead deer and sick deer.

The British Deer Society has been flooded with reports from deer experts reporting the animals limping and being covered with lumps.

A Maff spokesman said yesterday that government vets had tested nine deer for foot and mouth and none had been found positive: 'So far there have been no confirmed cases of foot and mouth in deer.' However, the Maff vets use the Elisa test, which was developed on cattle and sheep and is not thought to be so effective on deer.

In 1974 the government Animal Health Institute in Pirbright kept a number of deer in proximity to sheep with foot and mouth for two hours in a controlled experiment. The scientists found all six native species of deer contracted the disease, and several died.

In an outbreak of foot and mouth in California in 1924, the outbreak spread rapidly to deer. Slaughter men culled 22,000 deer in the Stanislav National Park and found that, of those, 2,279 were infected.

Dr John Fletcher, past president of the Veterinary Deer Society, said: 'It's highly likely the virus has entered the wild deer population - the deer are in abundance and graze in close contact with sheep and cattle. Nothing has been confirmed, but there is an abundance of anecdotal evidence, and it would be quite surprising if it hasn't entered the population.'

Deer experts have been calling on Maff for weeks to conduct a selective deer cull to ascertain the extent of the disease and to draw up contingency plans. However, Maff ignored their warnings until it called an emergency meeting on Friday. It is now considering lifting the ban on deer-stalking to provide the carcasses for tests.

The existence of the disease in Britain's 1.5 million wild deer population means the policy of mass slaughter of more than a million farm animals and the closure of most of the British countryside has been pointless.

The deer population will harbour the disease before building up resistance and it eventually dies out. This could take years. Until then the deer will repeatedly re-infect livestock and, with the disease endemic in Britain, meat exports will continue to be banned.

Squire said: 'We're looking at a huge slaughter and cost to the taxpayer for no purpose. How do you think the public will react when they know that?'

Booth said: 'If it's in the deer population, it will mean the mass slaughter policy will not work.' Confirm-ation of foot and mouth among deer will force the Government to abandon the mass slaughter programme, a move that has been steadfastly resisted by the National Union of Farmers. 'It will force their hand into vaccination,' said Fletcher.

http://www.bds.org.uk/ British Deer Society

Cattle

Shivering, Tender and sore feet. Reduced milk yield, Sores and blisters on feet. Raised temperature, Sore teats in milking stock

sheep/goats

Fever, Sudden severe lameness, lies down frequently and unwilling to rise, When made to rise stands in a half-crouch with hind legs brought well forward and reluctant to move, Blisters may be found on the hoof where the horn joins the skin which may extend all round the cornet and in the cleft of the foot, when they burst the horn is separated from the tissues underneath, and the hair round the hoof may appear damp. Blisters in the mouth are not always apparent but when they do develop, form on the dental pad and sometimes the tongue.

pigs

Fever, Sudden severe lameness, Prefers to lie down, When made to move squeals loudly and hobbles painfully, Blisters form on the upper edge of the hoof, where the skin and horn meet and on the heels and in the cleft, Blisters may extend right round the top of the hoof with result that the horn becomes separate, Blisters may develop on the snout or on the tongue.

The strain of foot and mouth virus responsible for the present outbreak reached Britain after a ten-year spread across the Middle East, Asia and the southern tip of Africa. The pan-Asia strain, as it is called, has spread more widely and breached more defenses than any other.

An analysis published in Veterinary Record by a team from the Pirbright Laboratory of the Institute for Animal Health shows that the pan-Asia strain first appeared in India in 1990. It spread to Saudi Arabia, probably through the trade in live sheep and goats, and then into neighboring countries. By 1996 it was in Turkey, from where it reached Greece and Bulgaria.

Not only did it cause large-scale disease as it arrived, Dr Nick Knowles and his colleagues report, but it persisted. The same strain caused outbreaks in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan and the Arabian Peninsula. During 1999 it was responsible for outbreaks on three large dairy farms in Saudi Arabia despite vaccination and high security.

From India it spread east and west, Nepal, Bhutan, Tibet and Hainan province in China by 1999. Cattle was moved to Taiwan, carrying the infection with them.

Its two biggest conquests in the Far East were Korea and Japan, in March last year. Pan-Asia's final port call before reaching the UK was South Africa, near Durban. This was attributed to feeding pigs on swill from a ship which started its journey in Asia.

Why Pan-Asia has proved so virulent remains unknown. Either the Virus has changed in some way to increase its survival and spreading or suggests Professor Chris Bostock, director of the institute for Animal Health, it shows a preference for pigs. Since pigs are omnivores, often fed on waste meat, it is easier to spread.

Irish Independent March 6, 2001

Cork vet Bill cashman, who has long cautioned on the dangers on “free trade” in farm produce, said a number of exotic diseases have spread out from mainland Europe since the Maastricht Treaty in 1994.

As consultant with Assured Food Safety Ltd, he has written a report on the pig industry which predicted that swine fever was a disaster waiting to happen. “The Treaty allowed for certification at point of origin (seller) rather than the point of entry, he said The emphasis shifted away from comprehensive checking, allowing the freer movement of disease. These newly arrived diseases include Mycoplasma bovis, a bacterium which first appeared here around 1997/98 and causes pneumonia, mastitis and arthritis in catle.

Mycobaterium johneii, better know as Johnes disease, cause severe scour. Bill said animals die a skeleton. It has a very long incubation period and is transmitted from cow to calf through the beasting. Here a herd is wiped out, it cannot be repopulated for three years and the land has to be ploughed down for 3-5 years. Wildlife can also be infected. It originally appeared in Ireland in a bunch of 10 imported in-calf heifers. One got sick and died while a further two tested positive and they were slaughtered, along with their three calves. Later it appeared in the cohort calves a couple of years later and the entire herd had to be depopulated. The Moorepark herd also had Johnes and Bill believes if it had not been depopulated with BSE then it would have gone down with Johnes. He said there is also the well publicised episode of a bull imported from France.

Anthony Browne, environment correspondent
Sunday April 22, 2001
The Observer

The foot and mouth virus has passed into Britain's wild deer population, making the Government's policy of mass slaughter of farmyard livestock futile

There have been several cases of vets clinically identifying the disease in wild deer, some of which have died from it.

Veterinary experts say it is impossible to vaccinate or cull wild deer and once infected they will act as a reservoir for the virus, repeatedly re-infecting livestock. It will make it almost impossible for Britain to rid itself of the virus, until it dies out naturally in wild deer, which could take years.