Tests negative on Co Tyrone farm

Preliminary tests on a suspected case of foot-and-mouth at Ardboe in Co Tyrone have proved negative.

Livestock on the farm has already been slaughtered as a precaution before the tests were confirmed, said Stormont agriculture minister Brid Rodgers.

Meanwhile, it has been confirmed that officials have sealed off another farm in mid Armagh where animals are showing clinical signs of the disease.

Mrs Rodgers said, after meeting members of the agricultural industry to discuss the three confirmed cases of the disease in the province, that a precautionary cull is being carried out in mid Armagh while results were awaited.

"All we can say is that clinical signs were present and we moved in immediately to slaughter and we have sent samples to Pirbright (laboratory in Surrey)."

The confirmed cases were in Meigh, Co Armagh, discovered on March 1 and six weeks later in Ardboe, and Cushendall, Co Antrim, she said.

All the infected animals on the Ardboe and Cushendall farms have now been slaughtered and incinerated and the department was now carrying out a pre-emptive slaughter of animals on surrounding farms.

A second suspected case in Cushendall had also been downgraded.

Mrs Rodgers repeated her appeal to farmers to report any unauthorised movements of livestock within Northern Ireland.

"There has been much media interest in possible illegal movements from Great Britain but, now that the disease is established here, unauthorised movements within Northern Ireland are at least as important and we need to know about them," she said.