London – Britain relaxed a nationwide ban on moving livestock Wednesday after authorities isolated the foot-and-mouth virus to a region near a government laboratory and a private company that developed vaccines for the disease.
The European Union maintained a ban on British meat and dairy exports, saying it would review the decision in two weeks. Britain retained a self-imposed export ban on such products.
Chief veterinarian Debby Reynolds said farmers outside a surveillance zone set up around the farms where the outbreaks occurred would be able to send their animals to slaughterhouses as of midnight Wednesday.
Health and safety experts were working to determine whether the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak came from a high- security government laboratory or from a private pharmaceutical company on the same site – and whether its spread was accidental or deliberate.
Despite easing the transport ban, authorities ordered the slaughter of livestock on a third farm suspected of having the disease. The farm was next to another where foot-and-mouth cases were confirmed Tuesday.
Reynolds said the order was a precaution and tests were underway to determine whether any more animals had been infected. She said the strain found on the second infected farm was identical to that found at the first outbreak and that used in the labs.
She said there was a “low but not negligible” risk of the disease spreading outside the surveillance zone.
The country’s health and safety agency said in a report that there was a “strong probability” the outbreak originated at the Pirbright lab site southwest of London and was spread by human movement. But the drug company being investigated as a possible source of the outbreak insisted there had been no breach of its biosecurity procedures.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said officials were investigating a vegetable plot near one of two infected farms. Newspapers reported that they were looking into the possibility a lab worker had carried the virus to the vegetable patch on boots or clothing.
Foot-and-mouth disease affects cloven-hoofed animals but does not typically affect humans.
