Animal Disease FIRST SIGN OF PEAK PASSED

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31540, 30 November 1967, Page 15

Animal Disease FIRST SIGN OF PEAK PASSED

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter —Copyright) LONDON, November 29. The first faint sign that Britain’s disastrous foot-and-mouth epidemic may have passed its peak was seen today.

For the second successive day new cases of the animal disease were well below the peak toll of 81 last Friday.

There were 55 outbreaks on Monday and 52 yesterday. The Government, however, was taking no chances in its fight against the disease as the toll of slaughtered cattle, sheep, pigs and gqats approached 213,000. * Soldiers armed with disinfectant manned an 80-mile east-west defence line along the Thames to keep the plague out of southern England.

The Government has ordered £300,000 worth of vaccine from abroad as a second line of defence against the The first batch, enough for 800,000 doses, will be flown

into London from Uruguay on Saturday. Britain has hitherto opposed the use of vaccine as an expensive and ineffective measure, relying on the slaughter of affected herds as the best means of containing the disease. Yesterday’s new outbreaks were all within the existing infected area of north-west England, the Western Midlands, and North Wales. The epidemic is now being treated by the Government as a major national disaster, and the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Fred Peart, is to broadcast to the nation on television and radio tonight.