Disease to continue for a long time, vet tells farmers

Farmers in Britain were today warned that foot and mouth crisis is set to last a long time yet.

As the tally of outbreaks reached over 100, Chief Veterinary Officer Jim Scudamore said, "We have such a large number of tracings and movements of animals to follow still. We will not see the disease disappearing at the end of this week and this outbreak is going to last for a long time."

89,000 animals have now been earmarked for slaughter, of which 61,000 had already been culled.

Mr Scudamore also revealed 500 vets were either helping or on standby to tackle the crisis, including vets from Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the United States.