Animals going for slaughter should be examined on farms before they are killed, the president of Veterinary Ireland, Mr Sean O Laoide, has said. It should be done to avoid the possibility of infected animals coming in contact with other animals or with farmers and abattoir workers.
Mr O Laoide, who is county vet in Westmeath, said sheep in particular sometimes showed incredibly vague clinical signs of the current strain of the disease - and there was transient movement of the virus through the sheep.
"Before animals leave a farm, a thorough examination could take place there. If it [foot-and-mouth] was discovered, it could be isolated on that particular farm and you wouldn't have to curtail half the farms in the country," he said.
About 8,000 animals moved off farms to abattoirs in the last week, so a considerable number of farm visits would be required. But Mr O Laoide said this was the only way. "We are learning a great deal from the proliferation of outbreaks of foot-and-mouth in Britain and about the current strain of the disease.
"When it occurred in Taiwan in 1999, the authorities discovered that the virus moves silently through small ruminants like sheep. The vague clinical signs in sheep are specific to that Pan-Asian virus. In Taiwan, they didn't discover it until it showed up in pigs. The bottom line is, it's difficult to diagnose foot-and-mouth in sheep. It's not your classical virus and the global spread is unique.
"We have seen it in the North, where it was discovered in the lairages of abattoirs. That is how the Essex case first came up.
"If that happens in Ireland, the sheep might have travelled half-way across the country and are finally in an abattoir situation where they have been in contact with other sheep, farmers, vets and abattoir workers. Look at the case of Athleague, where a lot of farms have been tied up as a result."
He did not believe farm inspections before slaughter would increase the movement of people between farms to any dangerous extent. "Vets going on to farms are different from the population at large in that they are professional health people. They are trained in clinical diagnosis of disease. And they have to go in, because cattle have to have a permit for slaughtering."