I can assure people that bovine TB is not in the same league as foot-and-mouth disease by any stretch of the imagination

Wales's Rural Affairs Minster, Carwyn Jones

The rural affairs ministry, Defra, has introduced movement restrictions on herds which are overdue their six-month or 12-month tests for the disease.

Ministers in London and Cardiff are playing down fears that the bovine TB outbreak could reach foot-and-mouth proportions, despite some 5,000 outstanding TB tests.

It has emerged that a meeting of the assembly's agriculture committee this week was told that an additional 25 staff are being recruited for the country's Animal Health Offices.

Full-time veterinary staff are also being diverted to catch up on the 5,000 case backlog, of which more than 300 were considered to be critical in February this year.

Carwyn Jones dismissed comparisons between the diseases

The actions come after a senior Welsh vet warned of a "serious" situation developing in Denbigh.

Nearly 800 cattle have been slaughtered in Wales so far this year.

Mr Hughes said: "What needs to be done at this moment in time is to get the ministry and the assembly to put more resources into testing these animals.

"We're now six or seven months behind because they were not testing last year."

In 2001, more than 6,000 cattle were slaughtered in Britain due to the bovine TB with almost 2,000 of these in Wales.

Farms are shut down for weeks after TB is discovered

Dozens of herds in Powys and across the border in Shropshire are currently under investigation.

But Wales's rural affairs minister, Carwyn Jones, has added his voice to government attempts to play down comparisons between bovine TB and foot-and-mouth disease.

He said: "I can assure people that bovine TB is not in the same league as foot-and-mouth disease by any stretch of the imagination."

His comments have been echoed by UK animal health minister Elliot Morley who said the comments by North Wales Divisional Veterinary Manager David Pugh - that the disease could be "as serious, if not more serious," than foot-and-mouth - were misleading.

Wales's chief vet, Tony Edwards, has defended Mr Pugh's comments as being designed to highlight the impact of the disease on farmers involved rather than on the industry as a whole.

He said: "I think what David was trying to say was that for the individual farmer the impact can be quite severe because of the time factor to control the disease.

The results of skin tests for bovine TB can take up to two months

"Once we find disease on a farm, we have to shut the farm up to prevent infection spreading.

"We have to go through a whole testing programme to make sure we have cleared the farm of TB and during that time the farm is not working at all."

He added that the next milestone in the Denbigh case would be in 60 days' time when the result of skin tests on livestock were known.

The mid-week assembly agriculture committee meeting was told that there has been a marked rise in bovine TB in Pembrokeshire, west Carmarthenshire, Gower and Monmouthshire.

Previously unaffected areas such as southern Ceredigion, central Carmarthenshire and Montgomeryshire have also been affected.

Key tests

Assembly members heard that during the foot-and-mouth outbreak TB testing virtually ceased during the four-month period from March to August 2001.

The number of overdue tests is around 5,000 and the number of key tests that are overdue amounted to 316 at the end of February.

These tests are on herds that have missed their six-month or 12-month check or herds contiguous to these premises.