Walsh expresses fears over second outbreak
Irish Agriculture Joe Walsh today highlighted concerns over the prospects of a second foot-and-mouth case in Ireland.
The alarm was raised after samples were taken from suspect sheep in County Louth, close to the location where the country’s sole outbreak of the virus so far was confirmed last week, and a new miles from the farm in Northern Ireland’s County Armagh, where the disease has also been detected.
Officials at Mr Walsh’s departmental headquarters in Dublin said during the night that they had ‘‘serious concern’’ about the outcome of the latest tests, which might not be available until tomorrow.
The samples have been sent for examination by foot-and-mouth experts at Pirbright, Surrey.
But Mr Walsh said that even if a new case were confirmed it would not affect Ireland’s overall exports position, as the suspect farm was inside the restricted zone, which is already barred from making overseas sales.
The position in Louth was ‘‘desperate and difficult’’ for the farmers there, he said.
A second confirmed case in the area would lead to a total of nearly 40,000 farm animals in the county being slaughtered.
The minister said officials were also waiting to hear from Pirbright about the results of checks on sheep showing potential foot-and-mouth symptoms at meat plants in County Wexford.
Agriculture officials have indicated there is less concern about those cases, but Mr Walsh said: ‘‘If those results were to be positive, it would mark a new dimension and a more worrying scale of the operation, because there would be geographical spread to other parts of the country.
‘‘That would be absolutely devastating.’’
Mr Walsh also ruled out vaccination against foot-and-mouth, despite British moves in that direction yesterday, declaring: ‘‘Vaccination is not an option for us for a number of reasons.
‘‘First of all, there are seven strains of this particular virus, and vaccination would only give immunisation against one of them.
‘‘Worst of all, for trade purposes we would lose our ‘white country’ very high animal health status, which enables us to deal freely with over 60 countries worldwide in animal products.
‘‘Britain are in the happy position of having a home market for their produce, whereas we are dependent on export markets for 90% of what we produce from the agriculture industry.’’
