The Foot-and-Mouth Epidemic

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31576, 13 January 1968, Page 14

The Foot-and-Mouth Epidemic

It is comforting news, for New Zealand and all other countries fearful of possible contamination, that the epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease in Britain is at last on the wane. It has been a costly and, indeed, a rather terrible experience, involving the slaughter of some 360,000 animals, apart from the widespread disruption of services and sporting fixtures occasioned by precautionary measures. Experts at the Ministry of Agriculture are still puzzled to account for the outbreak. Many incline to the view that swill feeding is to blame, more than half the outbreaks in recent years having been on swill-feed farms. There has been criticism of farmers suspected of ignoring the regulations requiring the prior boiling of swill. Household scraps, it has been pointed out, are a real danger, especially scraps of imported frozen meat, in which the virus may live for up to five months. Preventive measures are naturally again receiving close examination, and there has been renewed talk of vaccination. There is enforced vaccination of cattle in France, West Germany, Italy and some African and South American countries. Against vaccination it is argued that it is very costly, and that no vaccine has yet been found which is effective for any length of time against all types of virus. The “ Economist ” estimates than in the last 10 years, compensation for slaughtered stock in Britain worked out at an annual average of about £750,000 —not much more than France and Germany spent on compensation on top of the cost of vaccination. In the “ Economist’s ” view, slaughter remains the only ■viable policy. It would require a worse epidemic than any since the 19205, according to the journal, to make vaccination, in its present unsatisfactory form, appear worth while.