Safeguarding public and animal health

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Information released on 18 July 2005

Summary of information requested
During the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001, when in March did VLA receive the samples from the four infected premises in Cornwall?

Information released
During the 2001 Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak, the Veterinary Laboratories Agency (VLA) undertook a proportion of the sero-surveillance to regain country freedom.

It is very unlikely that VLA would have received samples for serology from infected premises in Cornwall. Most samples from infected premises only had antigen detection and virus isolation tests carried out on them.

These samples would have been sent to the Institute for Animal Health (IAH) at Pirbright. Pirbright is the lead laboratory for foot and mouth disease in the United Kingdom.

In very few cases, samples for serology were taken from infected premises to investigate epidemiological patterns or to aid diagnosis. As these were high risk samples (more likely to contain virus) they would also have been sent to IAH at Pirbright and not VLA.

VLA holds the electronic records of the sero-surveillance following the outbreak, but not the serology carried out for epidemiology or diagnosis. We have searched our electronic records for the four infected premises in Cornwall and can find no record of samples from these farms. We have searched on farm name and also tried using the FMO number but there were no matches.

Colleagues at Defra have provided the following information:
Two of the farms did not have samples taken for virology. One had samples sent to Pirbright that were positive for Foot and Mouth Disease virus. The fourth was a direct contact from another infected premise and during slaughter clinical signs were seen. Samples from this farm were sent to Pirbright but no virus was isolated.