Outbreak.

This is an account of Britain's 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak, covering the period from February 20th, when it was first identified in pigs in Essex, to 2nd April when Prime Minister Tony Blair announced the postponement of the General Election until June 11th. The source of the infection was traced to Burnside Farm, Northumberland and it was found that Northumbrian sheep had been sold to farms throughout Britain. The programme sets out to show that the problem got out of hand through conflicting instructions issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry's slow response to Prof. Roy Anderson and Dr. Neil Ferguson, epidemiologists at Imperial College, London who offered their help in checking the epidemic and showed the likely rate of increase in infection if MAFF did not take their advice to slaughter diseased animals within 24 hours of diagnosis as well as ring-culling farms in infected areas within 18 hours. Their advice was eventually taken. A controversy followed over whether uninfected animals should be vaccinated against foot-and-mouth disease, and in the end, vaccination was rejected. The epidemic peaked with 1800 farms affected by the disease. The Imperial College scientists believe that prompt slaughter of infected animals would have halved this number.