Britain May Begin Animal Vaccinations

As British soldiers continued the macabre task of burning truckloads of sheep carcasses in the northern county of Cumbria on Tuesday, the government said it might drop its opposition to foot-and-mouth vaccinations and begin inoculating animals against the disease.

Agriculture Minister Nick Brown told the House of Commons that the livestock epidemic, which has spread across the country with “unprecedented” speed, still has not peaked. The virus has struck 673 farms--up from 520 on Saturday--and nearly 700,000 animals have been destroyed or marked for slaughter.

Brown said the source of the disease might have been an illegal shipment of meat that made its way into pig swill, which is made by boiling leftovers from restaurants, schools and other institutions. He banned the use of pig swill in an attempt to prevent future epidemics.

The British government and livestock farmers have resisted a foot-and-mouth immunization campaign, which they said would harm exports once the disease is under control. Many countries, including the United States, will not accept livestock and meat imports from countries that vaccinate because it is difficult to distinguish inoculated animals from those carrying the virus.

The overwhelming scale of the epidemic, however, has prompted Britain to take a second look at immunizations. Prime Minister Tony Blair said on BBC radio Tuesday that he is considering an emergency vaccination program, such as the one the Dutch government is initiating.

“A few days ago even, this was generally regarded as anathema to very large parts of the farming community,” Blair said. “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.”

Brown added that an immunization program would be “no easy option.” But he said he has authorized his European Union agricultural representative in Brussels to seek permission to use the vaccine during the outbreak “so that it can be deployed immediately if we conclude that it is the right approach.”

A vaccination campaign would be costly and time-consuming and would sidetrack many of the 1,235 veterinarians dispatched by the government to help cull diseased animals. Inoculations can take as long as two weeks to become effective and they do not always work.

Vaccinations would probably be aimed at areas surrounding infected herds to try to slow the spread of the disease. They also could be used to protect herds of rare breeds.

Tim Yeo, the opposition Conservative Party’s spokesman on agriculture policy, said that a vaccination campaign would be tantamount to an admission by the government that its containment policy had failed. The current strategy is to kill all animals on infected farms and within two miles of them.

Investigators believe pig swill used at a farm at Heddon-on-the-Wall in northern England last month spawned the epidemic. Brown said it is unclear how the tainted meat got into the country and then into the swill, but London newspapers cited an illegal meat shipment from East Asia to a Chinese restaurant.

The disease spread from Heddon-on-the-Wall to seven other farms, and many of the diseased animals were shipped around the country before the outbreak was detected. Brown said he would introduce legislation requiring a 20-day “standstill period” after purchase for sheep, goats and cattle to contain future outbreaks.

Foot-and-mouth disease normally does not affect humans. It causes blisters and lameness in cloven-footed animals and can be fatal to them. It is extremely contagious, carried unseen on clothes, vehicles and even the wind.

In Cumbria on Tuesday, the army continued burying slaughtered sheep in a massive pit at an old airfield, where up to half a million animals eventually could be dumped. Nearly 800 soldiers have been mobilized in England, Wales and Scotland to help with the disposal.

Brown said that of 700,000 animals earmarked for destruction, 423,000 had been killed.

The government still has not said whether it will postpone a planned May 3 general election as a result of the epidemic.