Clinical and laboratory investigations of five outbreaks of foot‐and‐mouth disease during the 2001 epidemic in the United Kingdom

Abstract

Clinical and laboratory investigations of five outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) were made during the early stages of the 2001 epidemic in the UK. The first outbreak, confirmed on February 20, was at an abattoir in Essex which specialised in the processing of culled sows and boars. On February 23, the disease was confirmed at a pig farm in Northumberland which held cull sows and boars fed on waste food; the findings indicated that it was the first of the five premises to be infected. The disease had probably been present since early February, and it was the most likely origin of the epidemic. The other premises investigated were a waste food-fed cull sow/boar pig unit in Essex, approximately 30 km from the abattoir, which was probably infected at the same time or before the abattoir, a sheep and cattle farm approximately 6 km from the Northumberland pig farm, which was probably infected by airborne virus from it in the period immediately before February 13, and a sheep and cattle farm in Devon which had clinical disease from February 20 and was probably infected by sheep transported from Northumberland on February 13 which arrived on February 15.

Investigation of airborne foot-and-mouth disease virus transmission during low-wind conditions in the early phase of the UK 2001 epidemic

“…Infection is believed to have occurred between 25 January and 14 February, dependent on whether sheep or cattle were actually the first infected animals. According to Alexandersen et al (2002bAlexandersen et al ( , 2003 the first clinical disease could have been on 10 February if the lameness in sheep observed then was indeed FMD, however, they consider it more likely that lameness in sheep on 20 February was FMD and on 10 February not, although this is speculative. Clinical disease in cattle was dated back to 16 February based on the lesions, so the timing for "first disease observed" depends on whether it was in sheep on 10th otherwise it was first in cattle on 16 February, which the FMD experts from IAH consider is most likely.…”

“…Detailed descriptions of five early outbreaks during the epidemic, including Burnside Farm and Prestwick Hall Farm, have been recorded by Alexandersen et al (2002bAlexandersen et al ( , 2003. Based on estimates of the age of FMD lesions observed in the pigs, Alexandersen et al (2002bAlexandersen et al ( , 2003 considered that significant amounts of airborne virus may have been released from Burnside Farm in the period from 3 to 24 February.…”

“…This was followed shortly after by disease being confirmed at additional premises in Essex, Northumberland and Devon. Alexandersen et al (2002bAlexandersen et al ( , 2003 have given detailed accounts of the findings at five of the premises investigated during the early stages of the epidemic.…”

Models of foot-and-mouth disease

“…However, there is limited evidence for wind-borne spread during the UK epidemic in 2001 (Alexandersen et al 2003a;Mikkelsen et al 2003), and thus, for the purposes of this review, such models will be ignored.…”

Intra-serotype SAT2 chimeric foot-and-mouth disease vaccine protects cattle against FMDV challenge

“…Although mortality rates are generally low, morbidity is high and in the event that an FMD outbreak occurs, it results in severe economic losses to the livestock industry, especially in FMD-free regions of the world [1][2][3]. The disease is widely distributed in the developing world, in particular Africa, Asia and South America [2,4].…”