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Defra criticised for last summer's foot and mouth outbreak

11/03/2008

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has been criticised for last summer's outbreak of foot and mouth disease by an independent inquiry.

Dr Ian Anderson's report also blamed the laboratory at the source of the disease as being "shabby and dilapidated", saying that foot and mouth should never have escaped from the Pirbright complex in Surrey.

As a result the government has said that Defra would no longer be in charge of regulation the laboratory believed to be the source of two outbreaks of the disease.

Dr Anderson called for the creation of a National Institute of Infectious Diseases body which he insisted should run the complex instead.

Criticism was also aimed at the risk management and regulation at the site, claiming that the joint ownership, shared between the Institute of Animal Health and Merial, caused confusion over who was responsible for the upkeep of the area.

Dr Anderson stated that the foot and mouth virus should never have been released into the surrounding countryside from the laboratories and also criticised the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skill and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council for their role in the outbreak.

"This virus should never have got out. Everything was wrong around Pirbright, the regulatory system was poor, the risk management was poor," Dr Anderson said.

Environment secretary Hilary Benn said that the government would carefully consider Dr Anderson's report and would decide what steps were required to prevent any further outbreaks in the future.

Mr Benn also said in a written ministerial statement today that there were many areas where improvement was still required.

"An area of concern raised in Dr Anderson's report was in the performance of the information and data management systems that are needed during a disease outbreak. We have not made the progress we would have liked in this area despite considerable efforts," the environment secretary admitted.

"The aim is to ensure that both government and others have contingency plans in place to deal with disease outbreaks," he added.

Thousands of animals were killed and farmers lost millions of pounds as a result of quarantine zones and bans on meat exports after the foot-and-mouth outbreaks last summer.