BBC News
 Three
new cases of foot-and-mouth disease have been confirmed in the
Netherlands, taking the total to 10 and sparking fears that efforts
to contain the disease may have failed.
The Dutch
Agriculture Ministry said the latest cases were in and around
the Oene area in Gelderland, where several of the earlier cases
were detected.
Until last
week, Dutch officials had believed their early crackdown on the
movement of animals had been enough to protect the country.
 An
outbreak on the UK scale would devastate Dutch agriculture
But the steady emergence of new cases - an average of more than
one a day over the past week - is adding to fears that the virus
is now on the loose.
One of the
three new cases, in the village of Kootwijkerbroek, about 30km
south-west of Oene, is sounding particular alarm bells for officials.
"All
the cases are worrying, but this one in Kootwijkerbroek even more
so," a spokesman for the Dutch agriculture ministry told
Reuters news agency.
"Our
tracing tests are not yet finding relationships between the cases,"
he added.
The Dutch were the first to seek - and gain - permission to vaccinate
animals around infected farms, to create a firebreak against the
infection spreading.
The programme
is already under way, but the discovery of new cases could mean
the policy has come too late to stop the virus leapfrogging the
firebreak and spreading from farm to farm, as it has in the UK.
The UK has
now followed the Netherlands in winning EU approval for vaccination,
but has not yet begun the policy.
Foot-and-mouth
cases
UK - more than 740
Netherlands - eight
France - two
Ireland - one
The UK Government
has continued to insist that its mass burning of slaughtered animals
is the answer - a policy which Dutch ministers criticised early
on.
In France,
where two cases have been confirmed, an uneasy waiting game is
still going on amid hopes that the virus has been stopped in its
tracks.
Ireland, which
has one confirmed case, had some good news on Thursday, when several
suspected cases were given the all-clear.
Vaccination
facts
Not 100% reliable
10 days to take effect
May not be fully effective for three weeks
Repeat injections required
The UK's total
has passed 740 cases and is still rising daily.
The EU experts'
panel is currently debating vaccination requests from zoos which
fear the disease could spread to grazing animals such as giraffes,
antelope, camels or elephants.
Brussels is
seeking the advice of the World Organisation for Animal Health,
which determines the foot-and-mouth status of its 157 members.
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