Daily Mail Headline; says: ' A suspected new case of foot and mouth disease has been found close to the original outbreak. Debby Reynolds, the Government's Chief Veterinary Officer, said the outbreak had been found in the original 3km protection zone established after the first case was confirmed on Friday. Fifty cattle were culled last night after they were identified with clinical signs of the disease by animal health staff carrying out surveillance within the larger of the two protection zones in Surrey. It was unclear last night if the new outbreak was on a site belonging to Derrick Pride, owner of the farm where last week's outbreak occurred, or whether it was on a new farm.Miss Reynolds said: "Obviously this is devastating news for anybody who owns animals. We have a great deal of uncertainty and the situation means we are in the very early stages of dealing with it."
The news came after it was revealed yesterday that the institute at the centre of the foot and mouth outbreak was involved in five major health and safety breaches in the past year.
Six months ago the Institute for Animal Health was ordered to abandon experiments on TB-infected cattle following the discovery of flaws at its high-security isolation units. The safety failing happened at Compton in Berkshire, a sister lab to the foot and mouth research centre at Pirbright, Surrey, which is currently under suspicion of leaking the virus. If the same error had happened at Pirbright, it could have released foot and mouth into the countryside.
Today inspectors are due to publish their report into whether the foot and mouth outbreak came from a leak at the institute or the privately-owned Merial vaccine factory next door.
