The culling of thousands of animals during the foot-and-mouth outbreak was unnecessary, according to a former government vet.
Dr Nick Honhold, who was a Defra vet during the outbreak in 2001, says it would have been better to limit the scale of the cull. He says the study of field data found no evidence the contiguous cull helped to hasten the end of the outbreak. Dr Honhold says the data was taken from Defra's databases and records.
Dr Honhold's claims are made in an article published in the Veterinary Record. The veterinary epidemiologist now works for the Department for Agriculture and Rural Development in Belfast.  | | Thousands of animal carcasses were burnt during the 2001 cull. |
As part of the cull, healthy animals on farms next to infected ones were killed, despite protests from farmers and vets.
Nearly half a million animals were slaughtered across the South West of England to halt the spread of the virus, but at the time many farmers criticised the cull. Dr Honhold says the research concentrated on the three areas in England which had the largest numbers of clustered infected premises during the outbreak. They were the South West (Devon, Cornwall and Somerset), Cumbria and the Settle/Clitheroe area. Researchers compared the outbreaks with control policies such as the speed of slaughter on infected premises and the intensity of contiguous culling. "We found a very definite effect of speed of slaughter on infected premises," he said. Virus reservoir Many farmers and vets criticised the contiguous cull, claiming it was unnecessary and unjustified. Now Dr Honhold's report appears to give weight to that view. He said: "The outcome of our research suggests that the necessity for an extensive and intensive contiguous cull was not as it seemed to be at the time of the outbreak, when it was claimed to be essential for the control of the epidemic." He believes the speed of culling animals on infected premises was the most important factor. He says the disease could only spread from infected farms because there is no other reservoir in nature for the virus. Official figures from Defra at the end of the foot-and-mouth outbreak show that more than four million animals were slaughtered, of which about one and a half million were non-contiguous.
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