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14 November 2002
Scottish Executive Rejects Royal Society of Edinburgh FMD Inquiry
Recommendation:
Personal view by
Dr James Irvine
Editor www.land-care.org.uk and of the journal LandCare Scotland
Former member of the RSE FMD Inquiry
©Teviot Scientific Publications
The Scottish Executive recently published its
Response to The Foot and Mouth disease Inquiries (1).
It accepted all the recommendations made by the RSE FMD Inquiry
Report (2) except one.
The one that the Scottish Executive did not accept
is in relation to access to the countryside by the public at the
start of a new FMD outbreak. The text from the Scottish Executive’s
Response is shown here:
Access
Paragraph 163
Access was a contentious issue in 2001 and
the closure of footpaths in many areas created significant
problems for other parts of the rural economy, particularly
the tourism sector. Considerable work was undertaken to reopen
the countryside based on risk assessments and explanation
of dangers involved and the draft contingency plan aims to
build on this experience.
RSE Report Paragraph 22:
In the event of an outbreak, unless
its origins and spread are immediately apparent, the
countryside should be closed for a limited period of
three weeks at the same time as the animal movement
ban is announced; but as soon as the extent of the disease
is determined, the closure should be lifted in a non-affected
areas (para 198).
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Paragraph 164
The Scottish Executive is not able to accept
this recommendation. Footpath closures for as long as three
weeks would have a significant impact on the wider rural economy
which cannot be justified in terms of the risks involved;
and the suggestion that “the countryside” should
be closed without regard to the specific veterinary assessment
of risk would create unnecessary concern and loss for rural
businesses. The draft contingency plan expects that as part
of the creation of the Blue Box footpaths around the infected
premise will be closed to minimise any risk of further disease
spread. Outside the Blue Box the expectation is that the countryside
will be kept open with closure only being permitted on the
basis of a veterinary risk assessment. The assessment would
take a presumption in favour of access as its starting point.
The Scottish Executive will be discussing this issue in depth
with the Access Forum at the end of November but the responses
from the Contingency Plan consultation exercise have been
generally favourable.
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This must be a matter of concern for the following reasons:
1. FMD virus is highly infectious - indeed one
of the most infectious known.
2. In the majority of cases its mode of spread
during the UK 2001 FMD crisis could not be established. This fact
is highlighted in the Cumbria Report (3) and was
previously referred to on this website in an editorial (4)
written on 7th Oct 2002. The relevant text and table from the Cumbria
FMD Inquiry is reproduced below:
p 38
"...in the vast majority of cases it has not proved possible
to pinpoint a specific route of transfer of disease between farms,
and a high proportion of outbreaks is attributed to ‘local
transfer’. This is defined as ‘spread between infected
premises within 3km, which has not been fully determined’.
It is attributed to ‘aerosol spread between animals in close
proximity’ and/or ‘contamination in an area of an infected
place resulting in infected material on roads or other common
facilities, due to the movements of contaminated people, vehicles
and things’. Over 90% of outbreaks in Cumbria fell into this
category (Table 4).
Table 4: Percentage of spread of
FMD infection between farms accounted for by specific routes of
transfer for Cumbria and for other counties of England. (Reproduced
from Cumbria Report)
p 61
"The risk from walkers and other members of the public may
be small but it is not zero. Thus assertion that ‘there is
no known incidence of the disease having been spread by members
of the public using footpaths or bridleways’, which we have
heard, may be correct but, as is often pointed out, absence of
evidence is not evidence of absence. The risk created by walkers
and others will depend on the circumstances in specific locations.
Virus contamination picked up on boots or clothing and inadvertently
deposited on another farm could spread infection; and it is more
likely where animals and people can come into close proximity,
as is the case in parts of Cumbria.
3. Although the Scottish Executive accepts the
unanimous recommendation of all the FMD Inquiries that vaccination
against FMDV is to be regarded as an essential strategy in the early
stages of control of a new FMD outbreak, this will not provide protection
for some 4 days after administration (in the absence of prophylactic
vaccination). Moreover, it is highly probable on account of the
well established preclinical phase of FMD in all species and the
difficulty of detecting it clinically in sheep, the number of sites
of infection around the country will be unknown at the time of the
first case being confirmed.
4. The incubation period for FMD is some 14 –
20 days. Hence the recommendation that the countryside be closed
for 3 weeks.
5. Simple methods of effective disinfection of
persons and vehicles that have general application have still not
been established.
It would therefore be unwise to keep the countryside
open at the start of a new outbreak until it has been established
where the disease actually is. FMD is a dreadful disease with serious
consequences for many outwith farming. Although closure of the countryside
is highly inconvenient and has serious economic consequences for
tourism, other industries and personal recreation, the prime objective
for all must surely be to eradicate the disease as quickly as possible.
Once the precise locations of the foci of FMD
infection have been established, then indeed the effort should be
concentrated on opening up the countryside as quickly as possible.
If ring vaccination is used judiciously the opening up of the countryside
could be expedited.
The trouble with the line taken by the Scottish
Executive (para 164) is that a blue box may
be established around the point of the first established case of
FMD, leaving as yet unknown FMD foci which could be in any part
of the country unguarded. Surely the Scottish Executive has not
forgotten that one of the main problems of the UK2001 FMD outbreak
was that the disease had already got a hold in so many places by
the time the first case was spotted. With the limited safeguards
now in place, that is likely to happen again.
A further concern over the Scottish Executive’s
proposal to keep the countryside open and only to close parts of
it on a veterinary assessment of risk, must be the cumbersome and
inefficient way the government veterinary service assessed risk
in each locality. When a new outbreak of FMD arrives (as it surely
will in view of the continuing international epidemiology of the
virus) the efforts of the State Veterinary Service (SVS) must surely
be concentrating on identifying where the virus is as quickly as
possible. This should involve the SVS in a massive number of diagnostic
tests (hopefully on farm) and surveillance. Only then (and as quickly
as possible) should the countryside be opened up. Inconvenient and
economically expensive yes, but common sense would tell us that
it is likely to be the quicker route out of another potential national
disaster.
Next time let the science be applied with efficiency
and vigour, uncompromised by the political perceptions as to what
might or might not be popular or deemed to be politically more expedient.
©Teviot Scientific Publications
References
1. Scottish Executive Response
to: Lessons to be Learned; Royal Society; and Royal Society of Edinburgh
Inquiries into Foot and Mouth Disease. November 2002. Visit
Website | Download
PDF
2. Inquiry into Foot and Mouth
Disease in Scotland. The Royal Society of Edinburgh. Download
PDF
3. Cumbria Foot & Mouth Disease
Inquiry. Visit
Website | Download
PDF
4. Irvine, JI (2002). Foot &
Mouth Disease and Access to the Countryside. www.land-care.org.uk.
7th October 2002. (View
article).
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