The cost of eradicating foot-and-mouth disease in Europe could run to 170 million euros and the end is not in sight the European Parliament was told today.
"The cost of the present outbreak already has a full potential cost to the community of 170 million euro," Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner Mr David Byrne said in his third appearance before the parliament since the disease broke out in Britain on February 19th.
"As we speak, the total number of infected sites in the UK is over 900," he said, adding that over a million animals had been destroyed in that country in efforts to contain the disease.
"The reality is that it is a complex issue with formidable challenges," said Byrne.
He said, however, that apart from highly restricted regionalised vaccinations to create "firewalls" around infected sites, there was an EU-wide consensus among ministers, veterinary experts and farm unions that mass vaccination was not the answer.
"There is still a consensus that eradication of the present outbreak, without use of generalized vaccination, is the best course of action," he said.
Byrne said generalised vaccination of all cattle, sheep, pigs and goats in the EU would be "a lottery," since at least seven strains of the disease are known and any vaccine must be strain-specific to be effective.
Meanwhile around 100 pigs have been destroyed by precaution on a German farm after the discovery of a first suspected case of foot-and-mouth disease there.
Officials of the North Rhine-Westphalia agriculture ministry said that if the cases were confirmed, hundreds of thousands of animals might have to be destroyed.
AFP