By Jonathan Amos BBC News Online science staff

The foot-and-mouth epidemic cost billions

The electronic record of the �8bn disaster - accessible on the web - is intended for use by researchers worldwide wanting to understand better how diseases can spread through a nation's livestock herds.

It should also inform the emergency procedures now being established in the UK to prevent an event on such a scale ever occurring again.

The 29-gigabyte database reveals the daily decisions and commands of officials charged with tackling the crisis, and the information they passed to ministers.

It even details the results of the individual blood tests on infected animals and the ear-tag numbers that show the location and movement of all the UK's cattle at the outset of the epidemic.

It can be interrogated to show which animals were slaughtered and what was done with their remains.

Ear-tag data can be searched

It also catalogues the compensation scheme to farmers and the costs of fighting the outbreak.

"We've compiled what is the biggest database on any foot-and-mouth epidemic anywhere in the world and it's probably bigger than any other disease database apart from our BSE one," said Jim Scudamore, the Chief Veterinary Officer.

"It's an invaluable resource for science, for research, for economic analysis and for the development of future control strategies."

The database is a mass of charts, tables and maps that describe the development of the outbreak farm-by-farm, week-by-week.

It is fully searchable and cross-referenced. The Data Protection Act means the more personal details of farmers and their holdings will only be made available to bona-fide research workers under agreement.

These scientists will have password-protected access to the privileged data.

Epidemiologists, who study patterns of disease development, will be most keen to get their hands on the information. Two of the three official inquires into the 2001 outbreak called for more research in their field of expertise.

"The information will enable these researchers to build up extensive models of the foot and mouth outbreak," Howard Dalton, the Chief Scientific Adviser, said.

Foreign researchers are likely to want to learn from the UK experience

"And it's important to stress that although this database relates specifically to foot and mouth, it could apply to other diseases."

The need for the database was first recognised three months into the outbreak in May 2001.

A programme was set in motion to recover and preserve the mass of smaller databases, spreadsheets, paper records and electronic documents held by different government departments and agencies.

The Central Science Laboratory has spent the past 18 months pulling all the information together and validating it.

"It's a snapshot of what happened," said Jim Scudamore. "We still have much to learn: why did the disease spread the way it did; why did some farms become infected while others did not. This database should help us answer these questions."

The foot and mouth epidemic began on a Northumberland pig farm in the February of 2001; the last recorded case was reported in the following September.

About six million animals had to be culled because of infection or for welfare reasons. The cost to agriculture and the food industry has been put at over �3bn; the costs to the tourist and associated industries are thought to have doubled that figure.