Foot-and-mouth situation still under control

After the discovery of the foot-and-mouth disease in Britain, authorities are taking measures to ensure the virus doesn't spread across the country. Some say it came from the Pirbright laboratory in Surrey, which apparently contained 5,000 strains of this virus in its laboratory. The Pirbright facility receives samples of viruses that cause animal infection from all over the world and security measures will have to be strengthened if evidence that a strain of the virus has escaped. This type of disease only affects cattle and other farm animals and rarely harms people and at the time the crisis started, a pharmaceutical company was researching a vaccine against it. Keeping in mind the last outbreak in 2001 that led to the destruction of more than 6.5 million animals, British authorities aren't taking any chances and have created a protection zone around the area where the disease has been discovered. They have also placed a voluntary ban on exports of cattle, pigs and sheep, even before the European Commission had asked for such a measure. This will cost the UK billions of pounds and cause a decrease in tourism rates, as was the case in 2001, but authorities put the safety of population first. Britain's Prime Minister Gordon Brown, along with Conservative Party leader David Cameron have interrupted their holidays to get involved in ending the crisis. Both of them have high hopes that the situation will not get out of hand and the damage will not be as great as six years ago.

related story: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/epolitix/20070806/tpl-brown-moves-to-reassure-farmers-0a1c1a1_2.html

by Corina Ciubotaru for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

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Edited by: Jana Kalicka