Fears animal disease that affects births could spread across Britain

An animal disease which causes severe birth defects and miscarriages in livestock could spread across Britain this year, experts believe.

There have been 276 cases of Schmallenberg virus, which first emerged last year in the Netherlands and Germany, in cattle and sheep on farms across southern and eastern England since early 2012.

Adult animals which were infected during their pregnancies last autumn by virus-carrying midges, thought to have blown across the English Channel, gave birth to deformed or stillborn lambs and calves this spring.