Selective vaccination scheme put on hold

The British government has put on hold plans to vaccinate 180,000 dairy cattle in Cumbria after reports indicated that the daily rate of new cases of foot and mouth is in decline.
Figures published by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) show that the number of new cases fell by 22 during the fifth and sixth week of the outbreak, from 305 to 283.
However, MAFF has insisted that vaccination remains a contingency option. At the time of going to press, the total number of cases stood at 1,061, with over one million animals slaughtered in a massive cull.
The UK government was given the go-ahead by the European Commission to use emergency vaccination in Devon and Cumbria late last month. Although opposed to general preventative vaccination, the Commission acknowledged that in these two counties, where foot and mouth has spread in epidemic proportions, inoculation could play a role in controlling the disease.
The Labour peer and chairman of processor Northern Foods, Lord Haskins, expressed his support for selective vaccination, saying it would not eliminate the disease but would go some way to preventing it spreading further.
But he warned that if the govern- ment did not intervene immediately in Cumbria, then almost half of the country’s dairy herds would be at risk. But he laid to rest fears about a possible milk shortage, saying that the crisis would have to worsen tenfold before that could happen. To date, approximately 100 of the 22,000 dairy herds in the UK have been infected.
However, implementing a vaccination programme is not without its problems. It will mean those animals concerned will not be able to travel as they could still be carrying the disease. In addition, the UK would lose its disease-free status until three months after the last vaccination had been administered. This would cost the UK agri-food industry up to