BBC News
 Vaccination
is seen as another way of containing the spread
Downing Street
says it has less than 48 hours to decide whether to use vaccines
to control the spread of the foot-and-mouth.
European vets
gave their permission for a policy of vaccination on Wednesday,
but the government said the measures would only be used in the
disease hotspot of Cumbria.
Crisis in the UK
38 new cases
on Thursday
Total confirmed cases 780
788,956 animals due for slaughter
496,821 already slaughtered
349,379 carcasses destroyed |
Thirty-eight
new cases of foot-and-mouth confirmed on Thursday brings the disease
total to 780, with Tory peer Lord Clinton's Devon farm one of
the latest to be affected.
Conservative
leader, William Hague, has urged the prime minister to rule out
a 3 May general election, because the crisis is still "out
of control".
Tony Blair
has appeared on American television in an effort to persuade US
tourists that Britain is still "open for business".
In an interview
with NBC's News of America, Mr Blair said: "Any tourist attraction,
virtually, that anyone in the United States will have heard of
and wants to come and see, is open.
"Britain
is open for business, you can go to any town, city and village
that you want."
Policy
'correct'
Army butchers
are being used for the first time to help slaughter a backlog
of more than 280,000 animals, as killing continues at a massive
burial site in Great Orton, Cumbria.
The Environment
Agency has confirmed it is investigating a "pollution incident"
in a river close to a site in Wales being used to store carcasses
of the mass cull of 40,000 sheep on Anglesey.
Early indications
are that a tributary of the Afon Cefni has been contaminated by
body fluids seeping from the Mona airfield site where sheep carcasses
have been deposited.
Once the animal has been vaccinated it will have to be
killed
NFU president
Ben Gill
Earlier, National
Farmers' Union President Ben Gill stressed that both the government
and the industry was doing all it could to stop foot-and-mouth
and "get rid of it from Britain".
He said that
the policy of slaughtering infected animals within 24 hours followed
by the cull of animals on neighbouring farms within a further
48 hours was still the correct one.
He warned
that a vaccination programme would never be 100% effective and
was not a solution in itself.
He said: "I'm
not talking about blanket vaccination even within Cumbria. I'm
talking about targeted vaccination.
Click here
to see 1967 foot-and-mouth figures compared to 2001 figures.
"Remember
once the animal has been vaccinated it will have to be killed,
it can't stay there as a residue for the disease."
Elsewhere
in Europe, the Netherlands has already been given permission to
vaccinate in limited circumstances.
The number
of confirmed cases of foot-and-mouth disease in the country has
risen to 10 and the Dutch Agriculture Ministry has announced plans
to slaughter 80,000 animals.
New outbreak
EU governments
have so far resisted calls for a wider immunisation campaign,
warning of disastrous consequences for livestock exporters who
would lose disease-free status on world markets.
UK ministers
are hoping a cull of healthy animals in Cumbria will create a
firebreak around areas where foot-and-mouth is prevalent, and
stop it spreading.
But the revelation
that a new case of foot-and-mouth in Devon on Thursday is in an
area previously free of outbreaks has raised concern among farming
leaders.
 Up
to half a million sheep will be buried
Earlier Mr
Hague called on the prime minister to postpone the anticipated
3 May election, saying this "would be putting party before
country".
He said that
if he was prime minister he "would be concentrating on fighting
this disease and not the election".
Several senior
Bishops in the Church of England have joined Mr Hague in urging
Mr Blair not to hold a general election this spring.
The Archbishop
of York, the Right Reverend David Hope, said: "There is clearly
a very strong feeling in the farming community that there should
not be an election at the moment".
|
