- Hello Jeff - According to MAFF, the UK outbreak
is "fully
under control." Yeah right? Now, the worst case scenerio
just happened,
wild deer infected. Of course, the UK Govt. said that the people tested
for human FMD are all negative, i.e. if we can believe the govt. Also,
by the time that the testing was done, the people might not show postive.
Many people have mild flulike symptoms and never go to hospital
for testing.
You can bet, we are not being told the truth. Patty
-
-
- Foot And Mouth Disease A ProMED-mail post
<http://www.promedmail.org
ProMED-mail, a program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases
<http://www.isid.org
-
-
- Date: 4-29-1
From: William J. Barnes wjb@wjbagency.com
Source: The Observer - London 4-22-1 [edited]
-
- The foot & mouth disease (FMD) virus may have passed
into Britain's wild deer population, making the Government's policy of
mass slaughter of farmyard livestock futile.
-
- There have been several cases of vets
clinically identifying
the disease in wild deer, some of which have died, presumably from it.
Veterinary experts say it is impossible to vaccinate or cull wild deer
and once infected they will act as a reservoir for the virus, repeatedly
re-infecting livestock. It will make it almost impossible for Britain to
rid itself of the virus, until it dies out naturally in wild deer, which
could take years.
-
- Last week a roe deer was found dead at Kirk House Farm
near Penrith, which had already been confirmed as having FMD in livestock.
Local vet Matt Coulston identified lesions on all 4 feet and in its mouth.
'It had signs consistent with foot and mouth disease,' he said. 'There
have been loads of people round here reporting dead deer and sick deer.
'
-
- A Maff spokesman said government vets had tested 9deer
for FMD and none had been found positive: 'So far there have been
no confirmed
cases of FMD in deer.' However, the Maff vets use the ELISA (Enzyme Linked
Immunosorbent Assay) test, which was developed on cattle and sheep and
is not thought to be so effective on deer.
-
- In 1974 the government Animal Health Institute
in Pirbright
kept a number of deer in proximity to sheep with FMD for 2 hours
in a controlled
experiment. The scientists found all 6 native species of deer contracted
the disease, and several died.
-
- In an outbreak of foot and mouth in California in 1924,
the outbreak spread rapidly to deer. Slaughtermen culled 22 000 deer in
the Stanislav National Park and found that, of those, 2279 were
infected.
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- Date: 4-29-1
From: Steve Angus SteveA@spc.int
-
- FMD: telling the difference between vaccinated
and infected
animals
-
- ["Mason said veterinarians needed a vaccine that
acted faster and also made it possible to pinpoint the difference between
vaccinated animals and animals infected with the virus. The vaccine now
available takes several days to take effect. Current [accepted] tests are
unable to distinguish between cattle, sheep and pigs which have
been vaccinated
and those which have the disease." A quote from ProMED
digest v2001.n095.]
-
- While working as the epidemiologist for the national
veterinary epidemiology unit in Bolivia (Jan 98 to Dec 2000) I regularly
spend my time investigating FMD outbreaks and surveying parts of
the country
for evidence of viral activity (i.e. evidence of recent past infection).
In Bolivia there was sporadic vaccination against FMD which makes telling
the difference between vaccinated animals and animals that had previously
been infected critical to this work.
-
- There are a number of diagnostic tests which can be used
to differentiate between infection and vaccination, most of which rely
on the detection of antibodies for non-structural proteins. Although these
tests do have the habit of showing up occasional false positives (mainly
in older animals with a history of regular vaccination) it is possible
to work around this problem by considering the epidemiology of FMD.
-
- FMD is not a disease of individual animals, rather herds
of animals. Similarly animals are vaccinated on a herd basis, not
as individuals.
Hence, it is possible to tell whether herds of animals have been infected
since it makes no biological sense that only 1 animal in an unvaccinated
herd would be infected with FMD. In very extensive beef properties in South
America a prevalence of about 15% was normal and in intensive dairy systems
it could be over 80%.
-
- Identifying an infected vaccinated animal is
very difficult
and involves attempting virus isolation of probang samples from cattle
tonsils.
-
- As to including a marker with the vaccine (something
which will differentiate infection from vaccination) I accidentally came
across a marker for vaccinated animals. Due to regulations and past history
trivalent vaccine for types A,O and C were used in Bolivia. However virus
type C had not been isolated from Bolivia or any of its
neighboring countries
for more than 6 years.
-
- Animals carrying antibodies to type C were invariably
found to have been vaccinated as were animals with antibodies to all 3
virus types. Infected animals have type specific antibodies to
the outbreak.
Since any FMD vaccination program would be under strict ministry
of agriculture
control why would there not be a system of marking vaccinated animals,
perhaps with distinctive ear tags as with S19 brucellosis vaccination in
many countries.
-
- This would save some of the problems created by
individual
animals. Alternatively ear punching could be used as a more
permanent marker,
but again animals are vaccinated on a herd basis and not as individuals
and would presumably be under movement control so the occasional loss of
an ear tag would be irrelevant.
-
- Should FMD virus remain in circulation in the wild deer
population of the UK, then vaccination will again become a very attractive
option. Indeed, had the vaccine been used when the epidemic was
first recognized
to have been "out of control" at the beginning of March [2001]
it may have saved the slaughter of more than 2 million head of livestock,
a figure which could double before the end of the outbreak. All this at
what cost economically and socially to the people of the UK?
-
- Dr. Stephen D. Angus BVMS MSc PhD MRCVS SteveA@spc.int
Veterinary Epidemiologist Regional Animal Health Service Secretariat of
the Pacific Community (SPC) Suva, Fiji
-
-
-
-
- Date: 4-29-1 Source: Sunday Times London 4-22-1
[edited] Via: Humanitarian Resource Institute
<http://www.humanitarian.net/eidnet/fmd
-
- Farmers are rebelling over the mass cull of livestock
after it was revealed in some farming communities more than 1 in
10 outbreaks
of foot & mouth disease were diagnosed wrongly.
-
- Cases confirmed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries
and Food (Maff) to have been negative include the outbreak which led to
the cancellation of the Cheltenham Festival and another opposite the site
of the Royal Welsh Show, which was also abandoned.
-
- The mass slaughter is also causing a n increasing health
threat. Nearly 200 000 rotting carcasses are waiting to be buried in Devon
and evidence emerged yesterday that water supplies were
contaminated. Philip
Allen, of the National Farmers' Union (NFU) in Devon, said: "People
have had dead carcasses on their farms for 3 weeks."
-
- Although herds on farms next to outbreaks are not meant
to be culled until the case is confirmed by laboratory tests, officials
have ordered dozens of culls on adjacent farms -- only to find later the
tests gave negative results.
-
- There are fears that rivers and drinking water are being
contaminated by carcasses and thousands of gallons of disinfectant -- and
may be at risk for more than 2 decades. Mike Childs, campaigns director
of Friends of the Earth, said: "The Environment Agency says rendering
and incineration are the two best options for disposal of carcasses, but
Maff is dumping slaughtered livestock into pits which are not
even lined."
-
-
-
- Date: 4-29-1
From: ProMED-mail Source: BBC, [edited]
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_1300000/1300932.stm
-
-
- Pyres of animals slaughtered in the fight against FMD
may not pose as great a public health threat as feared, according
to initial
tests at 2 sites. Air samples taken at sites in Cumbria and Powys found
levels of toxic dioxins were relatively low. But concerns remain over
potential contamination with other pollutants from the burning and burial
of carcasses. (In mid-Wales, more than 1400 sheep are to be dug up, after
blood began leaching to the surface at their burial site near
Welshpool.)
-
- The analysis of emissions at a site in Allerdale near
Wigton in Cumbria -- which did not begin until the second day of burning
-- suggested the level of dioxins was "very low".
Initial emissions
test results at another burning site, the Eppynt range in Powys, seemed
to support the Allerdale findings. Dyfed Powys Health Authority said the
risks of ill health from pollution at Eppynt were confined to asthmatics
living close to the pyres.
-
- Dr Ian Lawes, who carried out the Allerdale emission
test, said: "Looking at the dioxin measurements we were
quite reassured
that they are very low, typically something like 10 times lower than one
would expect in an urban environment."
-
- Fires lit during the first 6 weeks of the crisis released
63 grams of dioxins into the atmosphere - 18% of the UK's average annual
emissions, according to a the Department of the Environment.
-
- The total number of outbreaks of the disease stands at
1499 with 13 more cases confirmed on Friday.
-
-
- [For more information regarding lessons other countries
can learn from this outbreak, please see
http://www.humanitarian.net/eidnet
- Mod.TG] ...............................mhj/tg/jw
-
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