Germany was last night bracing itself for what could be the country's first case of foot-and-mouth disease. Results are expected this morning from blood tests of pigs on a farm in the state of North-Rhine Westphalia, 50 km from the Dutch border.
The state's environment minister, Ms Baerbel Hohn, said that unlike previous scares the 100 pigs slaughtered as a precaution yesterday displayed "typical symptoms" of the disease.
Last month saw the first cases of foot-and-mouth in the Netherlands on a farm 40 km from the border with North-Rhine Westphalia. "We haven't had contact with Holland, France or England in years; I'm still optimistic," said Mr Frank Berning yesterday after state officials erected a 3 km exclusion zone around his farm.
The suspected outbreak is in the heart of Germany's pig-rearing industry, with almost 900,000 animals in the immediate vicinity and 150,000 cattle. "We may have to decide within days that we will have to kill tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of animals," Ms Hohn said.
The arrival of foot-and-mouth would be a serious blow for German farmers, just coming to terms with their first cases of BSE last year. The largest farmers' union wants "vaccination instead of slaughter".
