The threat of an escalation in the foot-and-mouth outbreak in Northern Ireland receded yesterday with preliminary test results on a suspect sheep in Co Tyrone proving negative.
Clinical signs comparable to the disease were found on the animal during a routine inspection prior to slaughter at Dungannon Meats factory on Monday.
The sheep was suffering lesions on its mouth and on all feet. However, blood samples sent to Pirbright laboratory in England and returned yesterday tested negative for foot-and-mouth disease.
But the North's Minister for Agriculture, Mrs Brid Rodgers, said final confirmation would come in a few days when "virology test results" were returned.
There has been no instance among current outbreaks in the UK of a sample initially testing negative but subsequently proving to be positive. Mrs Rodgers announced that the 8 km surveillance zones placed around the abattoir and the farm in Augher, Co Tyrone, from where the sheep were transported, would be lifted but movement restrictions would remain in place until confirmation.
No further signs of the disease have been discovered and another meat plant close by has been allowed to resume normal production.
The number of confirmed cases in the North remains at the single case discovered in Meigh, Co Armagh, two weeks ago.
"I am delighted that this initial result is negative," Mrs Rodgers said. "We must not, however, be complacent. But there are now grounds for optimism that this is not a case of foot-and-mouth disease."
Mrs Rodgers paid tribute to her own staff, the RUC, and the management of the slaughterhouse for their handling of the incident. The farmer concerned had also co-operated, Mrs Rodgers said.
"While this result is good news, I must reiterate my advice to the farming community and the agribusiness sector in general that we cannot relax our vigilance.
"The situation in Great Britain is deteriorating and it is therefore all the more important that we continue to follow the veterinary advice."
Mrs Rodgers said her investigators were also making progress on tracing about 60 additional sheep now believed to have been part of a consignment from northern England that brought the disease to a farm in south Armagh.
Large numbers of the sheep, which were licensed for slaughter in the North, are believed to have been subsequently smuggled into the Republic.
"I am reasonably confident that we will be able to trace all those sheep," she said.
Mr Joe McDonald of the Ulster Farmers' Union said farmers in the North were breathing a collective sigh of relief at the result.
"It is our aim now to keep regionalisation on the agenda and we must get back to the European Commission to try to get the export ban lifted for us as soon as possible," Mr McDonald said.
Mr Michael McCoy of the Northern Ireland Agricultural Producers Association called on farmers to inform department vets if they suspect anything.
"This is not a time to be independent, but it is a time for farmers to be collective," he said.
Meanwhile, the organisers of the Royal Agricultural Show, due to be held in Balmoral in May, have postponed the event until August.