BBC News | NORTHERN IRELAND | How did foot-and-mouth spread in NI?

A new laboratory will open next week at Stormont to help in the fight to track foot-and-mouth disease and eradicate it from Northern Ireland.

Blood tests are being carried out on sheep in an attempt to determine how widespread foot-and-mouth is among Northern Ireland's flock.

However, the samples are currently being sent to a laboratory in Surrey, before vets can recommend measures based on their results.

While the government has said the foot-and-mouth livestock disease crisis which has gripped Britain is now under control, in Northern Ireland the vets are still struggling to track the sources of infection.

Time delay

The virus first struck in Northern Ireland on a sheep farm in Meigh, County Armagh, seven weeks ago.

Six weeks later, a new outbreak surfaced in a dairy herd in Ardboe, County Tyrone.

Within a day, another outbreak had been confirmed in Cushendall in the Glens of Antrim.

Precautionary culls have also taken place some distance away in the Ballymoney area of County Antrim.

Agriculture officials are trying to discover how the second and third outbreaks happened six weeks after the province's first outbreak.

British imports

It is known that the south Armagh outbreak happened after sheep were imported from Britain which had been in the infected Longtown market in Cumbria.

Theory disease may have spread as sheep moved from pastures
The outbreak at Ravensdale, just across the border in County Louth in the Republic of Ireland, is thought to have been caused by the spread of the virus in sheep around the border area.

The emergence of two further cases at Ardboe and Cushendall has again turned the spotlight on sheep.

Department of Agriculture vets are concerned that other importations from Cumbria may also have brought the virus into Northern Ireland.

More than 15,000 sheep were imported from Britain in the early part of this year.

Most went directly for slaughter, but it is thought some may have been sold through two Northern Ireland livestock markets.

Pasture movements

One theory is that those sheep may have passed the virus onto other animals in the markets, which in turn spread it more widely as they were moved to farms.

It is thought possible that the outbreak in a dairy herd at Ardboe may have been caused by infected sheep being brought down from the hills for winter grazing.

One of the priorities for vets now is to test thousands of sheep across Northern Ireland to find out how many flocks may be carrying the virus and where the pockets of infection are.

Until that is established no-one will know the scale of the foot and mouth problem in the province.

'Accurate picture'

Northern Ireland Chief Veterinary Officer Bob McCracken said: "In the first instance we will be looking in the two large zones surrounding Cushendall and Ardboe.

Bob McCracken: "We hope to get a good picture of what is happening"
"Then we will move out to the sheep country in the Glens of Antrim and the Sperrins.

"From that we will move to other parts of Northern Ireland.

"We have a laboratory working hard for us and are guaranteeing that from next week we will be able to deliver 10,000 results per day.

"So by the end of next week I believe we will have a good picture of what is happening within those zones, if not also, to some extent in the Glens and Sperrins."

The Department of Agriculture can be contacted on its helpline numbers on 02890 524279 or 02890 524590 between 0830 - 2100 GMT.


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