[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Have a theory on Foot and Mouth Disease Outbreaks Corresponding with unusually wet weather in the United Kingdom.

Made a prediction for the last outbreak of F&M based on the widespread floods. The flooded areas were affected and this was related to the location of Pirbright Labs and localised virus sources. Nevertheless, the cattle were exposed to severe floods, high humidity which brings the animals immunity and temperature down to a level that enables infection to take place.

I Now want to stick my neck out and make another prediction.

I predict that Foot and Mouth Disease will plague the farming industry once again due to this unusually wet summer. Swine vesicular Fever and Blue-tongue also follow a similar pattern in relation to damp weather.

It is so wet here in Devon that Truffles have been found in gardens according to local news.

Already, people with skin conditions including eczema and psoriasis, are reporting increased problems.

Dry air is required to increase circulation. High Humidity compromises circulation causing a breakdown in tissue in hoof and mouth as the animal’s immune system and body temperature is lowered leaving it prone to infectious organisms.

Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, Sudden adult death syndrome, and deaths of the infirm will also increase statistically.

Multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s and other neurological conditions will follow similar increases in diagnosis and relapses from those diagnosed.

Just hope we do not get a Bird Flu Outbreak to top it all off.

Fingers crossed and watching the news closely.

Hopefully I am wrong but I doubt it.  []

Andrew K Fletcher



Other realated thread:
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=12733.0 

The information below was added 09/08/08 to remind readers of the way politicians managed F&M during the last major Nationwide outbreak.

Lest we forget!
http://www.numberwatch.co.uk/lest_we_forget.htm

Meanwhile an outbreak occurred in Holland. The Dutch implemented an immediate programme of vaccination, which suppressed the disease almost at once. The vaccinated animals were all slaughtered, but that was only done to satisfy the EU and its fears about its meat trading status. In Britain, the carnage, which had already seemed unimaginably barbaric, was about to enter an even more cataclysmic stage. The professor’s computer, like some latter day insatiable Moloch, demanded more and more blood sacrifices. The hit squads, by now not only officials but also the army, were roaming the countryside shooting, bludgeoning and drowning perfectly healthy animals.

The anecdotes from this period read like a lunatic’s account of a madman’s war. A mistake in a map grid reference caused the deaths, not only of a farmer’s livestock, but also his children’s pets. Other stock were killed through clerical error. 20,000 animals in Devon were saved at the last minute when a mistaken diagnosis was discovered. Pregnant sheep were shot at random while they climbed over the corpses of their fellows. Houses were broken into so that pets could be slaughtered. Mounds of carcases lay neglected and rotting in the fields, others were transported in lorries through hitherto unaffected areas with blood dripping onto the roads. Funeral pyres sent clouds of reeking smoke across housing estates. Burial pits containing up to half a million corpses leached blood and gore into water supplies. Thousands had to be dug up again.

It was at this point, towards the end of April, that Prof King announced that the disease was "totally under control". The election, which had now been put off to June, was uppermost in political minds and the spin-doctors took over. Suddenly the slaughter of healthy cattle was not so important and sheep were put in the firing line as the main spreaders of the virus. This had the other considerable political advantage that the EU had decreed that Britain was overpopulated with sheep anyway. From now on, it would be presentation that mattered. By now the total number of outbreaks had risen to 1,517. MAFF began to present only daily figures and wiped all the historical data off its web site. Slaughterings were reclassified so that they did not appear in the daily headline figure. Outbreaks were only included when they had been confirmed by subsequent testing. Farmers in Cumbria claimed that 24 outbreaks in their area had been reported by MAFF as only 9. Most sinister of all was a sudden conversion by MAFF vets from a tendency to label every suspicious case as FMD to a reluctance to admit that even the most obvious cases were the disease at all.

Dr Paul Kitchen, Britain’s leading expert on the disease, had been the most vehement critic of Prof Anderson’s computer. In the face of the way the election date had been changed, with the computer predictions following conveniently, he resigned his post as deputy head of Pirbright and took up a post in Canada.

In May, as the election campaign warmed up, the situation became really weird. The media, and particularly the BBC, were lulled into a remarkable quietude by the presentation skills of the spin-doctors. They behaved as if the crisis were all but over. Out in the real world of the British countryside the slaughter had entered a new crescendo. The daily average of animals killed reached a startling 32,000. The total number of deaths was now 6 million, nearly a tenth of Britain’s entire livestock. Ministers decreed the opening up of the countryside with photo-opportunities at appropriate tourist sites. Meanwhile, in places like Devon, Cumbria and Dumfries, the terror was being inflicted with greater intensity than ever. A few horror stories about armed gangs breaking in to slaughter pets leaked into the media. Farmers and animal sanctuary proprietors had begun legal challenges, many of which MAFF gave up on without a fight, by now being well aware that its actions had been quite illegal.

When another outbreak occurred in a new area, Settle in Yorkshire, MAFF suddenly refused to put the figures on its web site, citing the Data Protection Act as a reason. Secret mass burials were being carried out at the dead of night in ordinary landfill sites. Death squads of MAFF officials, backed up by dozens of policemen in riot gear, roamed the villages of Devon shooting every animal in sight. It was one of the most extraordinary examples of mass law-breaking in history, and all carried out be Government officials.

Tony Blair won his great gamble. Like his predecessor in large majority government, Margaret Thatcher, he was returned to power not by public enthusiasm for his own policies, but rather by the suicidal tendencies in the opposition. The aftermath was just as sordid as the conduct of the crisis itself. No official was punished for the massive breaches of the law. The only recognition that they had occurred was the Government’s seeking powers to slaughter more legally in future. Calls from many influential sources for a full inquiry were ignored and the Government spin-doctors dreamed up a scheme of three innocuous mini-inquiries as a substitute. MAFF had its name changed to DEFRA, but they were the same people in the same offices with the same mind set. In the week after the election 80,000 animals were killed and in the following week 93,000. The government also began to speak of restricting farming to those with licences to carry it out.

The epidemiologists had the last word. Prof Anderson claimed in an article in Nature that one million animals and four hundred farms could have been saved if his cull policy had been "fully enforced". Even more bizarrely, Prof King stated in a TV interview that next time "vaccination would have to be top of the agenda", not explaining why next time would be different from the last. Nearly eight million animals, one eighth of all those in Britain and most of them healthy, had been slain. Mass bankruptcies occurred throughout the rural economy. Industries ranging from hotel chains to hot air balloon manufacturers were devastated. The total cost to the British economy was in the range 10 to 20 billion pounds. Promises of Government aid faded away in the miasma of bureaucratic manoeuvring and EU regulation.

And, as occurred in Holland, it could all have been avoided with a simple programme of vaccination. It was all done in the name of a theoretical disease free status, which had ironically been invented by the British. Above all, it was yet another triumph for the science of epidemiology. If you think such an ironic remark unduly provocative, consider the summing up a year later by Professor David King, the UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser, who described the handling of the foot-and-mouth epidemic as "quite an achievement . . . a magnificent record". He told the BBC Today programme that securing Britain’s status as an FMD-free country was a cause for "celebration". Members of the European Parliament, among others, took rather a different view.

[Bored chemist]

Funny, I thought F+M was caused by a virus and that the reason it wasn't here was because we quarantined the virus.
The outbreak from Pirbirght was due to shoddy procedures and equipment.

[Moron]

and I predict that due to the recent wet weather, farmers will get muddy boots!

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

BC you can't quarantine a virus. The virus is here all the time. Just takes adverse weather and high humidity to lower the animals resisence to the pathogen and we have another outbreak. The virus may or may not have come from Pirbright, but let us remember that Pirbright must have isolated the virus from a former outbreak.

RE Muddy Boots. During all of the last major outbreaks of F&M in the UK farmers and veterinary surgeons have indeed been knee deep in mud, urine and cow dung. But more to the point so were the farm animals. Was it a coincidence that these animals that developed the disease were in low lying river valley areas and subject to serious flooding?

Funny, I thought F+M was caused by a virus and that the reason it wasn't here was because we quarantined the virus.
The outbreak from Pirbirght was due to shoddy procedures and equipment.

[rosalind dna]

Andrew if your analysis of the causes for the UK's animals getting foot and mouth is because
of wet conditions, floods.

Then how come that F & M has not occured this summer and it's been a wet one?

[rosy]

Eh? You can, and people do, impose quarantines for viruses. They don't actually transfer by magic, if infected and uninfected animals/people are kept seperate then the chances of disease transfer are greatly reduced.

The effectiveness of the quarantine is somewhat dependent on the resiliance of the virus and whether and for how long it can survive in the environment outside the organism.

I don't know what the infection mechanism of FMD is, but certainly skin tends to be softened by being wet all the time so if animals are in a damp field they might be more likely to get cuts on their feet so if that's a common infection route then it might be up a bit... but FMD is a systemic rather than a local disease as I understand it, so I don't think the state of the feet is particularly important otherwise.

A far more likely reason for increased transmission, I'd have thought, in particularly wet weather is that if there's lots of surface water washing from one field to another then it will facilitate transmission between herds.

[Bored chemist]

"Was it a coincidence that these animals that developed the disease were in low lying river valley areas and subject to serious flooding? "
Not entirely, the drains from the lab ran downhill in the way drains usually do.
The idea that bad weather causes F+M is odd to say the least, wet Summers are not rare in the UK but F+M outbreaks are.
Also, please dont waste time saying things like "you can't quarantine a virus.", at least not while you live in a country that has been kept free of rabies for decades. Also, don't say "The virus is here all the time." unless you have real evidence to back it up.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2008%5C07%5C12%5Cstory_12-7-2008_pg12_11
Rainy season linked to foot-and-mouth disease in Landhi
Daily Times Monitor

KARACHI: Experts who recently published their study on the world’s largest buffalo colony, which happens to be right here in Karachi, have urged farmers and the government to carry out double vaccinations to prevent the spread of foot-and-mouth disease which is endemic in Pakistan.

According to the paper - ‘Epidemiology of foot-and-mouth disease in Landhi Dairy Colony, Pakistan, the world largest Buffalo colony’ - published in Virology Journal in April, experts have studied the disease in the Landhi Dairy Colony (LDC), located in the suburbs of Karachi. LDC is the largest buffalo colony in the world, with more than 300,000 animals (around 95% buffaloes and 5% cattle, as well as an unknown number of sheep and goats). Each month from April 2006 to April 2007 the experts collected mouth-swabs from apparently healthy buffaloes and cattle.

The tests showed that the infection was endemic in the colony, with peaks in August 2006, December 2006 and February 2007 to March 2007. There was a significant link to the rainy seasons, which includes the coldest time of the year and Eid. They discovered that 88% of all questioned farmers vaccinate their animals.

The experts suggested twice annual mass vaccination of all buffaloes and cattle in the colony as part of a control programme. These mass vaccinations should best take place shortly before the beginning of the two rainy periods, e.g. in June and September. Those vaccinations should be in addition to the already individually performed vaccinations of single animals, as the latter usually targets only newly introduced animals. This suggested combination of mass vaccination of all large ruminants with the already performed individually vaccination should provide a continuous high level of herd immunity in the entire colony.

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious and economically important disease caused by foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV). Animals that can be affected include cattle, buffaloes, sheep, goats, pigs and wild ruminants.

FMD is endemic in Pakistan and causes huge economic losses to commercial cattle and buffalo owners. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) there are no proper arrangements for providing vaccine to the farmers and the open market is flooded with uncontrolled vaccine of doubtful efficiency.

FMD is considered endemic in both Pakistan and the neighbouring countries of India, Afghanistan, Iran and China and those serotypes are a continued problem in Pakistan.

Pakistan considers itself as having a seasonal, low-level, sporadic occurrence of FMD (Pakistan reported around 10–30 outbreaks per year until year 2000 after which no information is available). Animals are only vaccinated upon request and the yearly number of vaccine doses used varies between 12,000 to 95,000 doses for cattle and 7,000 to 60,000 for buffaloes in the years from 1997–2002 (no data available after 2002). This amount of vaccine is likely in addition to an unknown amount of open market, uncontrolled vaccines, but is nevertheless not much considering that Pakistan has a population of 51.1 million cattle, 56.9 million buffaloes, 50.3 million sheep and 123.9 million goats.

The majority of commercial dairy farmers is vaccinating its animals against FMD, either with imported trivalent vaccine, e.g. Aftovax (Merial, France), or with a locally produced monovalent vaccine (serotype O). Major challenges to control FMD in Pakistan relate, in part, to the lack of sufficient resources for diagnosis and continuous FMD genotype surveillance, but also the difficulties of controlling the vaccine market, as well as the lack of basic biosecurity awareness and control of animal movements. The latter is also hampered by the annual religious festival Eid ul-Adza, where thousands of buffaloes, cattle




The virus can be destroyed by high heat, low humidity, or some disinfectants, but may remain viable on contaminated objects or in frozen or chilled carcasses and animal byproducts for up to two years (USDA, 1994; MAFF, 2001). The disease spreads by exposure to infected or "carrier" animals or contaminated equipment, facilities, vehicles, roads, and common materials used in animal husbandry. Humans and other nonsusceptible animals may spread the disease. International travelers may spread the disease via contaminated clothing and shoes or by carrying contaminated food products across international borders. Long-distance spread can occur under certain conditions of topography, atmospheric conditions, high humidity, and wind (USDA, 1994; EUFMD, 2001).
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0HIC/is_3_16/ai_80848245

[Bored chemist]

The important bits there are
"The tests showed that the infection was endemic in the colony," and
"FMD is endemic in Pakistan"
Also "The virus can be destroyed by high heat, low humidity, or some disinfectants, but may remain viable on contaminated objects or in frozen or chilled carcasses and animal byproducts for up to two years "
So, since there was more than a 2 year break, the virus had to have cme from somewher other than the fields.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

The important bits:
As you state low humidity destroys the virus. Therefore High humidity must contribute to its survival and infection rate.

Infected animals were taken into warm clean dry laboratory conditions to be studied and they all recovered completely. Fact!

Special high humidity chambers are being manufactured to study infected animals in, so that they remain infected.

Animals in arid / dry areas, providing there is no artificially high humidity from intensive irrigations systems remain unafected.

Animals in flood plains deluged by rain become suseptable. Ironically so do human offspring and adults. High humidity lowers both animal and human abilities to combat infections.

http://www.namibian.com.na/2008/August/national/081B52DB93.html
Friday, August 1, 2008 - Web posted at 8:50:59 AM GMT
Foot-and-mouth disease SOS in the Kavango
BRIGITTE WEIDLICH
THE Ministry of Agriculture stopped all livestock movements in all regions north of the veterinary cordon fence yesterday following an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the Kavango Region near Divundu.
The temporary ban includes grass, thatch and "other plant material", which may also not be transported, and meat exports from the Oshakati abattoir have also been stopped until further notice.
Four surveillance teams have been deployed and the results of laboratory tests are expected by Saturday.
"The immediate area around Kamutjona village in the Mukwe constituency 16 kilometres south-east of Divundu has been designated as a containment zone," Andrew Ndishishi, Permanent Secretary in the Agriculture Ministry, said in a statement yesterday afternoon.
"The outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is suspected to have been transmitted from wild buffalo in the nearby Mohambo Game Park, which are long-term carriers of the FMD virus."
Roadblocks have been set up in the area, where 15 cattle with FMD were detected at four homesteads on Monday.
The area around Kamutjona village is home to about 900 cattle belonging to villagers.
"A temporary but complete ban of livestock movement from region to region in the whole buffer zone has been imposed, which are the areas north of the veterinary cordon fence.
The areas include the Kavango, Oshikoto, Oshana, Ohangwena and Kunene Regions," Ndishishi said. "Cattle in quarantine camps awaiting slaughter will be allowed to be processed at the Oshakati abattoir, but a moratorium on meat exports from there has been imposed," Ndishishi added. The restrictions were necessary to allow the Directorate of Veterinary services to fully investigate the extent of the FMD outbreak A gradual lifting of the restrictions will be announced in due course. Due to an earlier outbreak of FMD in the Caprivi Region this year, livestock movements there have been stopped already and the abattoir at Katima Mulilo has closed down for the time being..


We shall have to wait and see if there is another outbreak on the cards due to this unusually wet summer.

Andrew

[Bored chemist]

"As you state low humidity destroys the virus. Therefore High humidity must contribute to its survival and infection rate."
Damp might help, but the UK is generally damp. There generally isn't any virus about so we don't get outbreaks.

"Infected animals were taken into warm clean dry laboratory conditions to be studied and they all recovered completely. Fact!"
Most anoimals infected with FMD survive so there's nothing special about this observation.

"Animals in arid / dry areas, providing there is no artificially high humidity from intensive irrigations systems remain unafected."
The disease in endemic in much of Africa, Asia, and South America. They can't all be wet all the time.
Outbreaks tend not to occur in Winter when the weather is at it's coldest and wettest.

If there's another outbreak of FMD this year it will be traced (as the 1967, 2001, and 2007 outbreaks were) to a source of the virus.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Glad you mentioned the last outbreaks because every single one of them was plagued with widespread floods.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Complicated development of cattle and poultry diseases warned
09:31' 24/07/2008 (GMT+7) 
 
Pigs suffering from blue ear disease are culled.
 
VietNamNet Bridge - Over the past two weeks, in the whole country, two more "outbreaks" of bird flu disease have been reported in provinces of Dong Thap and Nghe An, blue ear diseases have occurred in six more provinces, in which Quang Tri, Thua Thien – Hue and Ba Ria – Vung Tau have been hardest hit, while foot-and-mouth diseases in Cao Bang and Quang Ninh have been gradually controlled.

The announcement is made by the Veterinary Department at a meeting in Hanoi on July 22 by the National Steering Board For Bird Flu Control and Prevention.

The Board said that the resistance of cattle and poultry will reduce in the coming time due to abnormal weather conditions, thus the danger of new outbreaks occurrence is still looming large, increasing the danger of blue ear epidemic spread, threatening the Central Highlands and the South Eastern provinces.

So, the Board requests localities to strictly monitor and stamp out the outbreaks of the diseases. Localities which are yet to be hit by the diseases should get ready chemicals and money and other means so as to actively cope with the diseases, if any.
 http://english.vietnamnet.vn/social/2008/07/795197/

[rosalind dna]

Glad you mentioned the last outbreaks because every single one of them was plagued with widespread floods.

Andrew it has been a wet summer this year but no signs of FMD so
that your theories for once don't seem to corrobrate with studies.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

Hi Rosalind dna

My prediction is that an outbreak is on the cards, not that it has happened already. We shall have to wait and see if this prediction has any merit.

Andrew it has been a wet summer this year but no signs of FMD so
that your theories for once don't seem to corrobrate with studies.

[GBSB]

My prediction is that an outbreak is on the cards,

I don’t think that is in the card.

You have presented strong point about unusually wheat weather along with widespread of floods in UK and the Foot and Mouth Disease Outbreaks

not that it has happened already.

According to your statement it already has happened (1967, 2001 and 2007)

last outbreaks because every single one of them was plagued with widespread floods.

We shall have to wait and see if this prediction has any merit.

I don’t think that the outbreak of foot and mouth disease will happen this year because this summer is wheat above average but is les wheat than last summer. The last summer it was a widespread of floods. This year we didn’t have widespread of floods, at least not yet.

[rosalind dna]

Hi Rosalind dna

My prediction is that an outbreak is on the cards, not that it has happened already. We shall have to wait and see if this prediction has any merit.

Andrew it has been a wet summer this year but no signs of FMD so
that your theories for once don't seem to corrobrate with studies.

Andrew I think that if that's so then the weather had better warm up a bit
which I doubt that is a possibility this year.

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

GSBG
Humidity is the important factor here not how wet the soil is. These animals require sunlight like the rest of us in order to flourish. Typically British weather often lacks sunlight. But this year we appear to be experiencing some unusual summer weather. Hopefully the winter may bring some dryer weather.

Even in desert conditions Excessive Irrigation often provides a river valley with very high humidity, This is often followed by an increase in viral and bacterial pathogen outbreaks, some very serious and life threatening. In addition Foot and mouth disease is also found in these artificially high humid environments.

In the UK we experience a fair amount of rainfall compared to many other countries. Our winters often bring with them the floods you mention. The ground water levels are already high. Ireland for example has experienced floods already so has Wales and Leicester.

There appears to be an uneven distribution of rainfall lately around the globe, with some areas experiencing severe drought yet other areas experiencing widespread floods. Africa has been experiencing some unusually high rainfalls in areas and this has followed with the appearance of foot and mouth disease and other viral outbreaks.

The First World War gives us another example of influenza pandemic killing millions of soldiers and civilians and crossing from country to country with little to no hope of containing it. This time was also the time of some unusually wet weather with soldiers suffering from trench foot due to the swamplike conditions.

In the Late Tudor Period the sweating sickness killed millions also. The Historic recording for it easing was a tempest that swept away the unusually foul air. Meaning High Humidity.

My prediction is that an outbreak is on the cards,

I don’t think that is in the card.

You have presented strong point about unusually wheat weather along with widespread of floods in UK and the Foot and Mouth Disease Outbreaks

not that it has happened already.

According to your statement it already has happened (1967, 2001 and 2007)

last outbreaks because every single one of them was plagued with widespread floods.

We shall have to wait and see if this prediction has any merit.

I don’t think that the outbreak of foot and mouth disease will happen this year because this summer is wheat above average but is les wheat than last summer. The last summer it was a widespread of floods. This year we didn’t have widespread of floods, at least not yet.

[Bored chemist]

Two points.
We get a lot of wet Winters and very few outbreaks. So when you write "Glad you mentioned the last outbreaks because every single one of them was plagued with widespread floods." you need to explain why lots of other outbreaks didn't happen.

Places like Vietnam etc which you keep citing have endemic FMD. The UK doesn't.
What the virus does in bad weather  is one thing. What bad weather does in the absense of the virus is another.

Do you not understand that
1 You need the virus to get FMD.
2 The UK doesn't generally have that virus?

[Andrew K Fletcher (OP)]

BC

You argue that the wild animals in Africa are responsible for maintaining the virus so that it can be spread back to livestock. Can I ask you why the wild dear and wild boar can't also be doing the same in the UK?