Britain tries to contain foot and mouth outbreak

LONDON, Aug 4 (Reuters) Britain moved rapidly to contain an outbreak of foot and mouth, a highly infectious disease that devastated farming six years ago, by isolating a farm west of London today.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown broke off his holiday to return to London and chair an emergency meeting of senior cabinet ministers.

Keen to avoid a repeat of the government's much-criticised response to the 2001 crisis, Brown said officials would work ''day and night'' to stem the outbreak discovered in a small herd of cattle yesterday.

Authorities set up a 3-km radius exclusion zone and a wider 10 km surveillance area around the infected farm in the county of Surrey,.

Movement of all pigs, sheep and cattle throughout the country for trade or other purposes was banned as a further precautionary measure.

Despite the precautions, Ireland announced it was banning the import of British meat, livestock and non-pasteurised milk, and said it would not export live animals to Britain either.

Britain's agriculture ministry said it had voluntarily suspended all exports of animal carcasses, meat and milk to the European Union. Exports of live animals to the trading bloc are prevented by the ban on animal movements.

Depending on how long that ban remains in place, the impact on British agriculture could be profound. Industry experts said British exports of livestock and meat were worth around 30 million dollars a week.

In the 2001 outbreak more than six million animals were slaughtered, many of them burned on huge bonfires.

The cost to agriculture and rural tourism of that weeks-long outbreak was estimated at 17 billion dollars and Brown's predecessor, Tony Blair, was strongly criticised for his government's handling of the problem.

A spokeswoman for the European Commission said all steps Britain must take under EU rules had been applied. EU veterinary experts would meet to evaluate the situation on Monday when further measures could be recommended if needed.

Today, workers from the agriculture department wearing protective suits, black gloves and masks were seen herding the 60 or so infected cattle towards pens where they were expected to be slaughtered.

QUICK ACTION The disease, which can travel on the wind and on farming equipment, causes high fevers and blisters in cloven-hoofed animals and often leads to death. It is very rarely transferred to humans.

Experts said Britain was better placed now to deal with the outbreak than it had been in 2001.

''We've got the administrative structures, we've got the infrastructure and we've got the scientific capability,'' leading microbiologist Hugh Pennington told the BBC.

''All these things were tested and found to be wanting in 2001.

Lessons have been learned and I'm confident we'll do much, much better this time.'' With memories still fresh of the long-term damage caused by the outbreak six years ago, the farming industry backed the government's action.

''People have to understand that last time the delay occurred caused the further spread,'' National Farmers' Union president Peter Kendall said.

''Going through short-term inconvenience now is a price worth paying if we can keep this to a single location.'' REUTERS PY KN1811