British vets confirm new foot-and-mouth case

A new case of foot-and-mouth disease was found in cattle on a farm in southern England on Friday, officials said.

It was the sixth case in an area close to a medical research laboratory since an outbreak began early last month, Britain's environment department said.

As a precaution, authorities had already begun slaughtering around 40 cows on the farm, which was inside a 3-kilometer (neary 2-mile) protection zone set up close to the latest reported cases in Surrey, south of London, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said.

Two new cases were detected in Surrey last week and government vets confirmed the disease was the same strain found at three other locations where a foot-and-mouth outbreak began Aug. 3.

That outbreak was centered near the government-funded Institute for Animal Health, a diagnostic laboratory, and Merial Animal Health, a British unit of the U.S.-French pharmaceutical firm Merial Ltd.

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On the Net:

http://www.defra.gov.uk/footandmouth