Contaminated meat smuggled into Britain from the Far East is thought to be the most likely source of the UK's foot-and-mouth epidemic. Some infected meat, probably illegally imported, went to an unidentified Chinese restaurant in north-east England.
The waste from the food served at the restaurant then ended up in pig swill which was fed to pigs at the farm in nearby Heddon-on-the-Wall that has been traced as the source of the outbreak in Britain. Pig swill is meant to be heated to 100 degrees Celsius to kill the virus. The London Times today cites an official report on the source and spread of the diseases. Officials are convinced they are on the trail of a meat smuggling operation that could have been going on for months.
The theory that contaminated meat was smuggled in from the Far East would explain the strain of foot-and-mouth found in the infected animals.
Prof Alex Donaldson from the Institute of Animal Health at Pirbright, Britain's main testing laboratory, said last Friday, that the strain found in Britain was common in China, Cambodia, Vietnam and other southeast Asian countries. He said the infection had probably come to Britain from the Middle or Far East.
Rachel Donnelly, in London, adds:
The carcasses of thousands of sheep were buried in a mass grave in Cumbria yesterday as the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, rejected Conservative calls to establish a "crisis cabinet" for foot-and-mouth.
As the number of confirmed cases in the UK rose to 628, and a prominent rural Labour MP urged Mr Blair to postpone the general election, the Prime Minister insisted the "containment by culling" policy to eradicate the disease was the correct course of action.
British army personnel spent the day digging 100-metre trenches at a disused airfield in Great Orton, Cumbria, and filling them with the carcasses of 7,500 sheep slaughtered as part of the pre-emptive cull to halt the spread of foot-and-mouth.
Excavating machinery and heavy diggers were brought to the site to dig the trenches and carcasses were transported to the airfield in leak-proof containers and buried in the ground.
In Commons exchanges with the Conservative leader, Mr William Hague, Mr Blair said the time between confirmation of the disease on farms and slaughter of animals was being reduced. Instead of jumping on the "bandwagon" the Tories should support efforts to control the disease.
However, charging the government with a lack of "urgency and clarity", Mr Hague demanded that Mr Blair "stop dithering" and set up a crisis cabinet to oversee foot-and-mouth policy.
But Mr Blair defended his actions, insisting: "It is a huge practical logistical effort. This is like tracking a common cold in the human population. It is very difficult to do."
Earlier, the vice-chairman of the rural group of Labour MPs, Mr Dave Drew, said he would prefer a delay in calling a general election. But he said backbenchers would "get on with it" if Mr Blair went to the country on his preferred date of May 3rd.