010394 British Suspects Smuggled Meat in Foot-And-Mouth

London - Suspicion centered on illegally ported meat as the cause of Britain's foot-and-mouth epidemic and officials considered vaccinating against a disease that has devastated the rural economy.

Agriculture Minister Nick Brown was to make a statement to parliament on the highly contagious livestock disease, which was first detected in Britain last month and has gone on to establish footholds in the Netherlands, France and Ireland. Brown was to discuss the possible causes of the outbreak, as well as proposals to fight it including a ban on the use of pig swill and restrictions on sheep trading, a spokesman for Prime Minister Tony Blair said.

The Times newspaper said infected meat, probably smuggled from the Middle or Far East, went to a Chinese restaurant in north east England and the waste ended up in swill fed to pigs at Heddon-on-the-Wall, where the virus was first detected.

“Given that we have been foot-and-mouth free since 1967, there must have been some illegal activity,” Blair's spokesman said, commenting on the report.

But he declined to give more details ahead of Brown's statement at 3.30 p.m. (1430 GMT). Brown will tell parliament that the epidemic would not have started had the pig swill been boiled, the Times said.

Use of swill has been progressively declining in Britain and fewer than 100 farmers still use it, Blair's spokesman said.

He also said the government wanted to look at applying to sheep the trading restrictions that already applied to pigs, which cannot be sold and then resold within 21 days.

He said the virus may have gone undetected for three weeks before it was diagnosed, during which time sheep were traded “up and down” Britain apparently spreading the disease.

Northern Ireland Exports To Resume

In the British province of Northern Ireland, where foot-and-mouth disease was confirmed at a single site four weeks ago, officials said livestock exports would resume next week following a decision of the EU's top veterinary advisers.

“From April 3, subject to there being no further outbreaks, there will be a lifting of the generalized controls on exports for most of Northern Ireland,” the province's agriculture minister Brid Rodgers said in a statement.

Rodgers said that exports were still banned from the immediate area where the disease was discovered.

Blair signaled that his Labor government could change policy and begin vaccinating against foot-and-mouth as Britain's epidemic goes into a sixth week with no peak in sight.

“As you track the disease and see how it spreads, things that may have seemed utterly unpalatable a short time ago have to be on the agenda,” he told BBC radio.

Baroness Hayman, a junior agriculture minister, told the BBC that “we have to consider” vaccination, possibly to buy time, or to protect rare breeds.

“I don't know if it's the answer,” she said. Until now, the government has favored slaughtering infected animals and avoided vaccination out of fear it would hit export markets, because Britain would lose its status as a “disease- free” zone.

Blair sent in the army with bulldozers Monday to dig a mass grave for up to 500,000 farm animals as the government stepped up its attempts to bring the epidemic under control.

With another 15 cases confirmed Tuesday Britain now has 649 confirmed outbreaks of foot-and-mouth and has slaughtered around 400,000 animals, most of which have been incinerated.

But a backlog has built up of more than 220,000 infected or suspect animals awaiting slaughter. One farmer went to court on Tuesday to challenge the slaughter of healthy animals in areas neighboring infected farms.

The Times said the strain of virus in British livestock was common in China, Cambodia, Vietnam and South-East Asia and had probably come from the Middle or Far East.

The paper said officials were investigating links between the farmers whose pigs were the first to contract the virus and a distributor who collected bins of waste food from schools and restaurants and passed it to swill processors.

It said that a container of illegal meat, labeled for a Chinese restaurant, was found inside a load of household goods after the first cases of foot-and- mouth were confirmed.

Meat from any region with foot-and-mouth disease is banned from being imported into Britain.

The virus spreads with dramatic speed and scientists have said that half Britain's livestock might have to be slaughtered. Foot-and-mouth has spread to the Netherlands and Ireland as well as to France; the three countries account for eight cases.

Blair's long-held hopes of calling a general election for May 3 have now become linked to his success or failure in fighting the disease, which is not thought to harm humans but has devastated livestock and rural tourism industries.

RETURN TO HOME PAGE

E-mail: sflanagan@sprintmail.com