The rest of the world will find this hard to believe, but animal disease control in the UK is right at the top in the world league. Certain countries, such as Argentina, have foot and mouth all the time. But we hear little about it. The thing is that humans can still safely eat meat from animals with the disease. The sad thing is that the animals suffer and less meat is produced from the sick animals.

The British Government is acutely aware of the problems associated with animal disease. Not only did the country suffer huge losses from the previous foot and mouth outbreak, but there was also the BSE or mad cow disease. Both times and currently, the authorities took action to limit the damage and to eradicate the disease.

Currently, there are two confirmed cases of foot and mouth. The affected herds were slaughtered. Although the outbreaks were close to each other in the South East, the movement of all cattle in the country was banned for a couple of days to ensure the matter was under control. It appears these two cases are isolated and things should get back to normal quickly.

That suggests lessons have been learned in a country where such issues are already treated seriously. And it would seem the outbreak is under control. Hopefully the scare is now over. But the UK's European counterparts, who are swift to bring in bans on British beef, should take a leaf out of her book. If they moved to eradicate the disease as swiftly as the UK, then there would be hardly any animal disease getting into the food chain.

Learn more about this author, Phil Hill.
Click here to send author comments or questions.

---

Add your voice

Know something about Is the latest UK foot and mouth outbreak under control?
We want to hear your view. Write now!