2001 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth outbreak

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Slaughtered animals being incinerated

The outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the United Kingdom in 2001 caused a crisis in British agriculture and tourism. This epizootic saw 2,000 cases of the disease in farms across most of the British countryside. Over 6 million cows and sheep were killed in an eventually successful attempt to halt the disease.[1] Cumbria was the worst affected area of the country, with 893 cases.

With the intention of controlling the spread of the disease, public rights of way across land were closed by order. This damaged the popularity of the Lake District as a tourist destination and led to the cancellation of that year's Cheltenham Festival, as well as the British Rally Championship for the 2001 season and delaying that year's general election by a month. Crufts, the international dog show, had to be postponed by 2 months from March to May 2001. By the time that the disease was halted in October 2001, the crisis was estimated to have cost the United Kingdom £8bn.

Background

Notice telling people to keep off the North York Moors

Britain's

quicklime.[citation needed
]

In 1980, foot and mouth treatment policy passed from the hands of the UK Government to the European level as a result of European Community (EC) directive, 85/511. This set out procedures, such as protection and "surveillance zones", the confirmation of diagnosis by laboratory testing and that actions had to be consulted with the EC and its Standing Veterinary Committee. An earlier directive, 80/68, on the protection of groundwater gave powers to the Environment Agency to prohibit farm burials and the use of quicklime unless the site was authorised by the Agency.[citation needed]

Since the 1967 outbreak, there had also been significant changes in farming methods. The closure of many local abattoirs meant that animals for slaughter were now being transported greater distances.

Outbreak

Beginnings

A government notice on a quarantined Oxfordshire farm

The first case of the disease to be detected was at Cheale Meats abattoir in Little Warley, Essex on 19 February 2001, in pigs from Buckinghamshire and the Isle of Wight. Over the next four days, several more cases were announced in Essex, and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) imposed movement restrictions on livestock in and out of eight kilometres around the infected area. On 21 February, the European Commission announced a blanket ban on the export of any meat, milk products, or livestock from the UK.[2]

On 23 February, a case was confirmed in

"untreated waste".[3][4][5]

On 24 February, a case was announced in Highampton in Devon. Later in the week, cases were found in North Wales. By the beginning of March, the disease had spread to Cornwall, southern Scotland and the Lake District where it took a particularly strong hold.

A disinfectant bath used to disinfect the wheels of vehicles to try to stop spread.

During investigation of the

Great Heck rail crash, which took place on 28 February in North Yorkshire, investigators visiting the crash site had to go through a decontamination regimen, to prevent possible contamination of the crash site's soil with the virus.[6]

The MAFF adopted a policy of "contiguous cull" – all animals within 3 kilometres (3,000 m) of known cases would be slaughtered. This was immediately clarified as applying only to sheep, not cows or pigs. The policy of MAFF was that where affected carcasses from the cull could not be disposed on site, they would have to be taken to a rendering plant in Widnes; as such, the corpses of infected animals were taken through disease-free areas.

Control measures

A government notice on the 2001 UK foot and mouth disease outbreak. King's Sutton is in Northamptonshire, south of Banbury.

By 16 March, the number of cases was at 240. Around the time, the Netherlands had a small outbreak, though the disease was contained by vaccination; the vaccinated animals would later be destroyed, in line with EU requirements on trading.

epidemiologist
who had been modelling human diseases at Imperial College and was on the committee concerned with BSE. By the end of March the disease was at its height, with up to 50 new cases a day.

In April, King announced that the disease was "totally under control".

42 (North West) Brigade.[8]
From May to September, about five cases per day were reported.

Final cases

The last case was reported on Whygill Head Farm near Appleby in Cumbria on 30 September. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) downgraded to "high risk" the last area to be denoted "infected" on 29 November. The last cull in the UK was performed on 1 January 2002 on 2,000 sheep at Donkley Woods Farm, Bellingham, Northumberland. Restrictions on livestock movement were retained into 2002.

With no new positive tests, the UK declared itself free of the foot-and-mouth disease on 14 January 2002, officially ending 11 months of the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak.

Political effects

The outbreak caused the delay by a month of the local elections in the UK. Part of the reason was that bringing together so many farmers at polling stations might cause extensive spread of the disease. However, more importantly, it was widely known before the outbreak that the Government had chosen the day of the local elections to hold the

Second World War
.

Following the election, Blair announced a re-organisation of the government departments. Largely in response to the perceived failure of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to respond to the outbreak quickly and effectively enough, the ministry was merged with elements of the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions to form the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

European infections

Number of outbreaks of foot and mouth disease in Western Europe in 2001 (█100-893 █50-100 █10-50 █1-10)

Several cases of foot and mouth were reported in Ireland and mainland Europe, following unknowing transportation of infected animals from the UK. The cases sparked fears of a continent-wide pandemic, but these proved unfounded.

The Netherlands was the worst affected country outside the UK, suffering 25 cases. Vaccinations were used to halt the spread of the disease. However, the Dutch went on to slaughter all vaccinated animals and in the end 250,000–270,000 cattle were destroyed, resulting in significantly more cattle slaughtered per infected premises than in the UK.[10]

Ireland suffered one case in a flock of sheep in Jenkinstown in

also cancelled. Three matches involving Ireland in rugby union's 2001 Six Nations Championship
were postponed until the autumn.

France suffered two cases, on 13 and 23 March.

Belgium, Spain, Luxembourg and Germany carried out some precautionary slaughters, but all tests eventually proved negative. Further false alarms that did not result in any culling were signalled in Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Italy. All other European countries imposed livestock movement restrictions from infected or potentially infected countries.

Investigations

Probable source

The consensus is that the FMD virus came from infected or contaminated meat that was part of the swill being fed to pigs at Burnside Farm in Heddon-on-the-Wall. The swill had not been properly heat-sterilized and the virus had thus been allowed to infect the pigs.[11]

As the virus was believed to be not present in the UK prior to the outbreak, and given there were import restrictions for meat from countries known to harbour FMD, it is likely that the infected meat had been illegally imported to the UK. Such imports are likely to be for the catering industry and a total ban on the feeding of catering waste containing meat or meat products was introduced early in the epidemic.[11]

In June 2004, Defra held a simulation exercise in five areas around the UK to test new procedures to be employed in the event of a future outbreak. This was in response to findings that showed that in 2001, MAFF had failed to respond quickly enough to stop the high volume of animal movements coming out of the UK's livestock markets; without disease testing, infected animals were being quickly moved throughout the British Isles facilitating the spread of the FMD virus. In 2001, the NFU had accused MAFF of acting too slowly in the early stages of the outbreak even though the UK's Agriculture Minister claimed as late as 11 March that the outbreak was under control.[12]

Government inquiries

As the 2001 outbreak seemed to cause as much harm as the previous outbreak in 1967, there was a widespread government and public perception that little had been learnt from the previous epizootic (despite the publication in 1968 of a report, the Northumberland Inquiry, on the previous outbreak). In August 2001 therefore, in an effort to prevent this failure to learn from history from happening again, HM Government launched three inquiries into various aspects of the crisis. They were:

  • Inquiry into the lessons to be learned from the foot and mouth disease outbreak of 2001. This inquiry was devoted specifically to the government's handling of the crisis. It was chaired by Sir Iain Anderson CBE, previously a
    special adviser
    to Tony Blair, and reported in July 2002.
  • The Royal Society Inquiry into Infectious Diseases in Livestock. This inquiry examined the scientific aspects of the crisis, for instance the efficacy of vaccinations, the way the virus spreads and so on. It was chaired by Sir Brian Follett and also reported in July 2002.
  • Policy Commission on the Future of Farming and Food. This inquiry focused on the long-term production and delivery of food within the country. It was chaired by Sir Donald Curry
    and reported in January 2002.

All three inquiries reported their findings to the public. However, the inquiries themselves took place in private. The lack of a full public inquiry into the crisis caused a group of farmers, business leaders and media organisations to lodge an appeal at the High Court against the government's decision not to hold such an inquiry. Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, had ruled out a public inquiry on the grounds that it would be too costly and take too long. After a four-day hearing, the court sided with Beckett and the Government.

An Independent Inquiry into Foot and Mouth Disease in Scotland initiated by the

Scottish Executive
.

The

Farm Animal Welfare Council
, an independent advisory body established by the Government in 1979, also published a report. Its recommendations including material from both The Royal Society Inquiry into Infectious Diseases in Livestock and the Independent Inquiry into Foot and Mouth Disease in Scotland.

The use of a

National Farmers Union. Although the vaccine was believed to be effective, export rules would prevent the export of British livestock in the future, and it was decided that this was too great a price to pay, although this was controversial because the value of the export industry (£592 million per year)[13]
was small compared to losses to tourism resulting from the measures taken. Following the outbreak, the law was changed to permit vaccinations rather than culling.

Health and social consequences

The Department of Health (DH) sponsored a longitudinal research project investigating the health and social consequences of the 2001 outbreak of FMD. The research team was led by Maggie Mort of Lancaster University and fieldwork took place between 2001 and 2003.[14] Concentrating on Cumbria as the area that was worst hit by the epidemic, data has been collected via interviews, focus groups and individual diaries to document the consequences that the FMD outbreak had on people's lives. In 2008, a book based on this study was published, titled Animal Disease and Human Trauma, emotional geographies of disaster.[15]

See also

References

  1. PMID 23958457
    .
  2. ^ "UK meat exports banned". CNN. 21 February 2001. Retrieved 11 November 2022.
  3. ^ Morris, Doug (30 May 2002). "A farmer's negligence". BBC News. Retrieved 22 April 2015.
  4. ^ Abrams, Fran (31 May 2002). "They just wanted a scapegoat". The Guardian. Retrieved 22 April 2015.
  5. ^ Wilson, Jamie (29 June 2002). "Foot and mouth farmer banned for 15 years". The Guardian. Retrieved 11 October 2018.
  6. ISBN 0-7176-2163-4
    .
  7. ^ based on Not the foot and mouth report: everything Tony Blair did not want you to know about the biggest blunder in his premiership, Private Eye special report November 2001 Archived 18 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ "The man waging war on disease". BBC. 29 March 2001. Retrieved 5 November 2011.
  9. ^ "DISEASE DAMAGE". PBS. 30 March 2001. Retrieved 24 January 2008.)
  10. ^ Royal Society of Edinburgh, Inquiry into foot and mouth disease July 2002
  11. ^ a b "Origin of the UK Foot and Mouth Disease Epidemic 2001" (PDF). Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. June 2002. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 April 2013. Retrieved 26 October 2018.
  12. ^ "Foot-and-mouth crisis timetable". CNN. 7 August 2001.
  13. ^ Freedland, Jonathan (16 May 2001). "A catalogue of failures that discredits the whole system". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 October 2018.
  14. ^ Mort, Maggie; Ian, Convery; Cathy, Bailey; Josephine, Baxter (2004). "The Health and Social Consequences of the 2001 Foot & Mouth Disease Epidemic in North Cumbria" (PDF). Institute for Health Research, Lancaster University. Retrieved 26 October 2018.
  15. ISBN 9780230227613
    .

External links
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