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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".
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