British farming crisis will not peak until May - expert

The foot-and-mouth crisis will not peak until early May at the earliest - just when Tony Blair wants to hold the General Election - a leading disease expert has warned.

Professor Roy Anderson, the epidemiologist called in by Maff to prepare projections of the likely pattern of disease, said that was the "best case" scenario.

His projections show that the outbreak will not be eliminated until at least August.

"I think everyone is in agreement, both the Government, the farming community and the independent scientific advice, that this epidemic is not under control at the current point in time," Prof Anderson said.

"If this cull is applied vigorously and effectively enough you could turn the epidemic into a decaying process hopefully within a month to two months.

"Doing something even better than that, I'm not convinced is possible at the moment."

Prof Anderson said the current outbreak was set to be worse than the 1967 crisis because of the wide spread of infection.

He blamed changes in farming practice, the increase in movement of livestock across Britain and a decline in the numbers of vets available to spot the disease and said the current crisis was "an epidemic waiting to happen".

"There has been a steady decline over perhaps two or three governments in the amount of resource available for veterinary surveillance in dealing with crises of this sort," he said.

"Therefore this was, in some senses, an epidemic waiting to happen. If we don't put enough public resources into surveillance, both in the veterinary context and the human context, then we must be prepared to pay the consequences when we do have a crisis."