New UK foot-and-mouth outbreak confirmed
Tests have confirmed another case of foot and mouth disease in Surrey, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said.
Cattle on a farm in the same area as three other recent cases have tested positive for the disease, Defra said.
Around 40 cows on the farm in the Egham area were already being slaughtered as a precaution.
Earlier Defra said the farm was within the current 3km protection zone which was set up after the latest cases emerged.
Tests were carried out after the animals displayed clinical signs of the disease.
It is the sixth confirmed case of foot and mouth in Surrey since the initial outbreak at the start of August.
A number of sites outside Surrey have also been investigated and several control zones set up, but these have all proved to be false alarms.
A Defra spokeswoman said: “Positive test results for foot and mouth disease (FMD) have now been confirmed at the site where it was earlier decided that cattle should be slaughtered on suspicion.
“The affected animals are within the existing protection zone and this now becomes the sixth infected premises since August 3 this year.”
The spokeswoman said minor changes now had been made to the protection and surveillance zones.
Laboratory results have shown that the strain of the disease has been the same in all cases in the outbreak so far.
Animals on the fifth premises – Klondyke Farm – had the same strain as the previous four infected farms.
The latest four cases near Egham have emerged in the last two weeks – just days after officials declared the UK free of the disease following the August outbreak which has been blamed on the virus escaping from leaking pipes at the nearby Pirbright laboratory site.
Some 1,800 animals have been slaughtered since the outbreak, at what is traditionally one of the busiest times of the year for livestock sales.
Defra has lifted some of the movement restrictions outside the surveillance zone.
Licences are now available to allow pigs to be moved for welfare reasons, and the movement of animals up to 3km (1.8 miles) or cows for calving up to 50km (31 miles) between premises belonging to the same owner.
The animals affected by the sixth outbreak graze on National Trust land which is part of the Runnymede estate between Egham and Windsor. The cattle were today corralled in a pen within sight of the A308 and surrounded by Defra officials and police cars. It is expected that the cull of the diseased animals will continue today.
Footpaths across the land which makes up part of the estate have been closed since the start of the outbreak and locals expressed shock that the disease had spread outside the immediate Egham area.
A local farmer at Hardwick Court Farm in Egham said: “How far is it going to spread. Just when you think that you’re safe and you can breathe a sigh of relief it pops up again. We’re all just devastated."
