Foot and mouth disease: how prepared is the UK for new threat?

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A troubling revelation emerged last week amid efforts to stop foot and mouth cases detected in Germany spreading to the UK. In an Environment, Food & Rural Affairs Committee enquiry into the efficiency of Britain’s post-Brexit biosecurity, border officials said it had taken around a week to update restrictions on German imports after an alert was sounded.

Despite a ban on the import of cattle, pigs, sheep, deer, buffaloes and their products from German, Port Health authorities warned it was possible meat and dairy goods that were meant to be flagged by the tech platform continued to enter the country “for at least six days”.

An auto-clearance function in the post-Brexit trade platform had not disabled in the days immediately after the ban began on 11 January, according to Dover Port Health Authority boss Lucy Manzano.

Defra claims it took four days, not a week, for its import of products, animals, food and feed system (IPAFFS) – where importers notify authorities of goods entering the UK and file the respective paperwork – to update.

But even a remote possibility that FMD could have made its way into the country has raised serious fears among the farming community, in which many remember the tragic outbreak of 2001. The event not only cost the UK economy around £8bn but also “caused serious heartbreak”, recalls National Sheep Association CEO Phil Stocker.

The notion Britain could now be vulnerable to another outbreak is “frustrating to say the least”, says British Meat Processors Association chief Nick Allen.

Border controls

The episode has prompted the industry to demand tighter biosecurity measures at the border.

“Britain is an island, which in theory puts us in a good position to keep diseases out,” Stocker notes. “But even this is dependent on effective border controls, and rigorous enforcement and policing of these controls”.

A Defra spokesperson argues that “restrictions were immediately brought in on animal products from Germany to prevent an outbreak”. They claim the government “ensured that auto-clearance facilities were superseded by robust biosecurity controls which were implemented at pace following confirmation of the outbreak”.

Port Health authorities were also instructed to check and hold suspected consignments, and traders carrying impacted loads were notified to head to border control posts upon entry into the UK, Defra says.

The spokesperson adds: “The government will do whatever it takes to protect our nation’s farmers from the risk posed by foot and mouth disease.”

But border officials warn that cuts to inspections team budgets mean they don’t have enough manpower to physically check all suspected consignments, particularly if the tech systems aren’t helping to flag them.

Manzano also argued there were “no robust systems in place for tracking” the products once in the country “and making sure that it’s removed from our food chain”.

During the enquiry, authorities told of the conditions in which they have to carry out controls on vehicles entering Dover port, often pulling them for spot checks on live lanes without proper containment facilities.

“These viruses are so potent, all it takes is a drop of blood or a discarded sandwich on the Cotswold Hills” for them to quickly enter the UK, chartered environmental health practitioner Helen Buckingham told MPs.

The Efra Committee has this week written to Sue Hayman, Defra minister responsible for biosecurity and borders, to request a timeline of the department’s response to the 10 January report of FMD in Germany, and to confirm the quantity of prohibited goods that were able to enter the country between controls being approved and IPAFFS being updated.

It has also urged Defra to give Port Health authorities the funding needed to continue checks to protecting Britain against diseases such as FMD and African swine fever.

Personal imports

But risk lies outside commercial imports too, farmers warn, including with individual travellers bringing foodstuffs back from their European holidays, unaware of the current restrictions on personal imports.

Allen says: “People travelling from Germany may bring back a sandwich and end up disposing of it at a lay-by. It wouldn’t take long before a fox took it to a field of animals and that quickly would spread.”

The damages could be catastrophic in the event a traveller ”inadvertently brings in some infected meat and meat products”, adds Tony Goodger, head of comms for the Association of Independent Meat Suppliers.

“Farmers could see their stock culled and restrictions to travel into the countryside introduced, which in turn would impact on the rural economy”, he says. Plus, the UK “would lose all export markets” due to bans.

“For a government that wants to see growth and suggests they have an economic black hole to fill, is the possibility of a £14.7bn bill and loss of valuable export markets, along with economic impact to tourism, a risk worth taking?” Goodger asks.

Because the stakes are so high, farming and livestock groups want a complete ban on personal imports, with tighter measures for those arriving via both plane and boat.

AIMS has called for all personal imports of all meat and meat products, be they from the EU or from third countries, to be prohibited, ”not just for the time that there is an FMD outbreak in Germany but also moving forward”.

Allen says: “You won’t see a ham roll getting into Australia, not from Germany and not from anywhere. We need to have more discipline.”

Livestock tracking

If FMD were to enter the UK, containing the damage could be a near impossible task, says Allen – not least because 24 years on from the 2001 incident, “our livestock traceability systems aren’t much better than they were”. That’s “despite the government spending quite a lot of money to improve them”.

The government’s Livestock Information Service is heavily reliant on farmers submitting paper reports, “which are not entirely reliable”, Allen says.

“We’ve got blue tongue at the moment and we’ve not done a great job at containing it because of our paper reporting movements – that is if you can even read the handwriting on a piece of paper.

“With paper trails it would take you a week to get on top of those movements. In 10 days we could easily manage to get into a situation like 2001 – whereas digitally it would take a day to track the danger points.”

Digital reporting should therefore be mandatory to keep track of any potential outbreaks in real time, BMPA has told Defra ministers.

“You really have to be on top of traceability”, Allen reiterates. “Hopefully this is a one-off case but we should use this as a wake-up call where it’s made everyone think about our systems.”

For those in the livestock sector, the advice is to “check and recheck your supply chains”, says Goodger. “If the price you’re being quoted is much lower than the benchmarked market prices and the origin less than clear, turn it away.”

For now, the industry is reassured that, a month on from the alert in Germany, no further cases have been detected in the country or neighbouring regions.

But “the risk of FMD getting to Britain remains”, Stocker warns. “This seemingly isolated case is a stark reminder of the need for permanent robust border controls, even at times of low risk.”