MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Britain identifies likely causes of recent Surrey FAM outbreak

Leaking drains, heavy rainfall and building work have been blamed for triggering the recent foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in Surrey, England according to reports made public Friday in London.

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said last month's outbreak in Surrey was due to "a unique and unhappy combination of circumstances" but that it was impossible to know the exact cause. The Health and Safety Executive's (HSE) investigation into the escape of the live virus of the O1 BFS strain focused around two facilities at Pirbright - the Institute of Animal Heath (IAH) and the Merial Animal Health Ltd (Merial). These are the factors which probably led to the foot-and-mouth outbreak. Chief vet Debby Reynolds said Surrey was disease-free and the surveillance zone would be lifted on Saturday but the 5km security area around the Pirbright site would remain in place. The reports, one by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the other by Professor Brian Spratt of Imperial College, include evidence of damage to the pipe with tree roots breaking through and unsealed manhole covers. HSE Chief Executive Geoffrey Podger said: "We judged it likely that waste water containing the live virus, having entered the drainage pipe work, then leaked out and contaminated the surrounding soil." The report suggests the soil could then have been taken to surrounding farming areas on the wheels of vehicles that visited Pirbright. The investigators said there had been dispute between Merial, a private pharmaceutical company, and the Institute of Animal Health (IAH) - the two research centres that share the Pirbright site - over who was responsible for maintaining the drains. Dr. Reynolds, said more than 8,000 samples from animals had been tested over the past two weeks, and all the animals tested were healthy. However Reynolds said the earliest the UK could achieve international foot-and-mouth disease-free status would be 7 November. She said she was "satisfied that foot-and-mouth disease has been eradicated from the UK in 2007". The reports made a number of recommendations that Mr Benn said the government would accept in full. These include the requirement that Merial and IAH sterilize all waste in a "high containment area;" a revision of what access is given to restricted areas; and the requirement that other laboratories address the issues identified in the reports. The president of the National Farmers Union, Peter Kendall, said it was "indefensible" that such a high-risk environment could have been allowed to get into a state of disrepair. "I find it well-nigh incredible and quite indefensible that standards should have been as lax as these." He said the union was in discussion with lawyers about the possibility of suing for compensation. In the outbreak, hundreds of animals were culled and livestock movements were restricted around Britain, at a cost of millions of pounds to farmers.