Foot and Mouth is a highly infectious viral disease, affecting mainly pigs, cows, sheep and goats. The disease can be recognised by fever, blisters in the mouth vicinity, teats or between the hooves.

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Introduction

Foot and Mouth is a highly infectious viral disease, affecting mainly pigs, cows, sheep and goats. The disease can be recognised by fever, blisters in the mouth vicinity, teats or between the hooves.

The livestock do not actually need to be destroyed once the disease has been identified and in fact there is a vaccination for one strain of the disease. However, vaccinated animals can still be carriers and therefore pass the disease on. This then leaves little alternative but to destroy and burn the infected livestock.

The official 2001 outbreak of foot and mouth disease (FMD) occurred on the 21st February, however reports suggest that the outbreak was well advanced by then.  Infected sheep were sent to Hexham market on the 13th February, other sheep were then infected and transported across England. The sheep at Hexham market must have caught the infection up to 2 weeks before this time and the source of that infection must have been 2 weeks before then.

The last major epidemic of foot and mouth disease was in the 1960’s and at first it was hoped that the outbreak this year was not going to get anywhere near as bad.  Unfortunately the 2001 outbreak has long since gone beyond that of the 1960’s for a number of reasons, namely the sheer volume and distance involved in the transportation of livestock.

In the 1960’s outbreak the Armed Forces were called in after 12 days, however this time round, MAFF spent 20 days talking with the Army before deciding that they needed their help, during which time the problem was becoming increasingly worse. At first the government decided that the Army were to just be involved in the disposal of carcasses but on the 28th March they had to fall back on their contingency plan and use the Army to assist in the slaughter as well.

Methodology

Information was gathered from nightly news reports, then researched for further information on the internet and newspaper. This gave the report the information on the current FMD outbreak.

The report used the books listed in the bibliography and class notes to investigate the theory relevant to the criteria set out in the assignment.

A run down of the major decisions and events made of the 2001 FMD

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[source – www.news.bbc.co.uk]

Planning

A plan is a clear guide that helps to arrange people, and align their efforts towards the same goal, in this case to eradicate the disease foot and mouth. Without a direct and comprehensible plan, there is risk of diversity or misinterpretation, which in turn will not succeed the required primary objectives.

A successful plan has to include certain features in order to ...

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