Volume 1

Report of the Committee of Inquiry on Foot-and-Mouth Disease, 1968 / presented to Parliament by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food by command of Her Majesty, April 1969.

  • Great Britain. Committee of Inquiry on Foot-and-Mouth Disease.
Date:
1969
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Report of the Committee of Inquiry on Foot-and-Mouth Disease, 1968 / presented to Parliament by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food by command of Her Majesty, April 1969. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    70/142 (page 68)
    considerably to the success of general vaccination campaigns and may now be largely responsible for maintaining the improved situation. The vaccination campaigns in Belgium, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, the Nether- lands and Switzerland have undoubtedly been successful, although these countries still have an epidemiological problem among their large susceptible pig popula- tion (see Table ITI). Barrier Vaccination 120. Barrier vaccination involves the vaccination of all susceptible animals in a buffer zone to prevent foot-and-mouth disease spreading from one area to another. The successful application of barrier vaccination depends on the knowledge of the distribution and movement of the types and sub-types of the virus. The international agencies which help in this task are the Office Inter- national des Epizooties, (O.I.E.), the Pan American Foot-and-Mouth Disease Center, the European Foot-and-Mouth Disease Commission of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (F.A.O.), the Near East Animal Health Institute at Beirut (also part of F.A.O.) and the Inter-African Bureau for Animal Health. The Animal Virus Research Institute also assists in this work in its role as the international reference laboratory and is designated by F.A.O. as the World Reference Centre for typing and sub-typing of strains of foot-and-mouth disease virus. An example of barrier vaccination is to be found in Argentina, which maintains a buffer vaccination zone running east- west across the whole country to protect the provinces south of the Rio Negro; Denmark also uses barrier vaccination along its southern borders when there is a threat of the introduction of disease from northern Germany. Such vaccination may be carried out either with a monovalent vaccine if the type of virus is known, or otherwise with a polyvalent vaccine. 121. Barrier vaccination was successfully practised when, from 1962 onwards, south-east Europe was threatened with the introduction of the type SAT 1 _ virus which had not previously occurred on the Continent. Vaccination measures, co-ordinated by the European Economic Community, the Office International des Epizooties and the Food and Agriculture Organisation, were introduced to prevent the spread of the disease. In November, 1964 the disease situation on the south-eastern borders of Europe was further complicated by the emergence of the sub-type A,. virus which spread rapidly from east to west through the whole peninsula of Anatolia and reached Greece. Investigations showed that only the homologous sub-type A,. vaccine would prevent further spread into Europe. Supplies of such vaccine were produced for use in buffer zones in Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey. In addition a vaccination campaign with sub-type A, vaccine was carried out in parts of Turkey. Many European countries contributed financially and by seconding staff; the United Kingdom Government supplied approximately £550,000 in cash and in vaccine. The measures taken successfully prevented the further invasion of Europe by type SAT 1 and sub-type Ago viruses. 122. In Mexico a rather different form of barrier vaccination contributed to the control of a foot-and-mouth disease epidemic which started at the end of 1946. Early efforts to control the disease by a slaughter policy met with only limited success and a vaccination policy was introduced in large quarantine