This page has been quite active in recent years. Really there should be no need for me to have a page about Foot and Mouth Disease and I hope I will never have to use it again. Foot and Mouth Disease is still a problem in Africa, South America, Asia and parts of Southern Europe. The virus is still stored and used for research purposes in this country, no doubt there will be further escapes if this situation continues, but hopefully that will not be for a very long time in the future when there are a different generation of scientists working on the disease.

There are new rapid on farm testing methods that have been developed to identify all of the common serotypes which should be of great benefit as early cases can readily be confused with other conditions.

This is the disease that is responsible for the movement restrictions that we have to observe on all farms. There are no signs that these will be relaxed in the foreseeable future

It is still important to clean and disinfect, make sure there is disinfectant and cleaning materials at your farm entrance so that visitors can disinfect themselves before entering and when they leave.

Last time we were able to publish first details of the out break in Surrey twenty minutes after the first text message alert. I may not be quite so quick next time but you can be sure that if the is anything going on news of it will appear here. Please feel free to ring the Surgery 01743 791246 if you have any questions about Foot and Mouth Disease.