The number of foot-and-mouth cases in the UK passed 100 yesterday as farmers were told the outbreak had not peaked and would continue "for a long time".
In a gloomy assessment of the disease's progress, the UK's chief veterinary officer, Mr Jim Scudamore, confirmed 11 more cases - bringing the total to 107 - and dashed hopes cautiously raised earlier in the week that the disease could peak in the next few days.
The Ministry of Agriculture had hoped to see fewer confirmed cases 14 days after the ban on the movement of livestock, when the incubation period of the disease in sheep had passed. That had not happened and Mr Scudamore warned farmers not to expect a sustained fall in cases this week. "We have such a large number of tracings and movements to follow still. We will not see the disease disappearing at the end of this week and this outbreak is going to last for a long time."
The disease now seems to be spreading most rapidly among cattle that have come into contact with infected sheep. In a further effort to prevent its spread, all vehicles leaving Britain will have to pass through a disinfectant bath.
Ministry officials have also had difficulty tracing sheep sold at Longtown market in Cumbria before the ban on the movement of livestock - they believe some were sold outside the official trading area.
In Berkshire, National Farmers' Union representatives were "slightly less optimistic than a couple of days ago" as they awaited results of tests carried out on cattle at a farm in Baydon, near Lambourn, about 50 miles from the Cheltenham racecourse. Sheep and cattle at a farm in Shalbourne, three miles from the National Hunt training area at Lambourn, were slaughtered after foot-and-mouth was confirmed.
With next week's Cheltenham festival postponed, the clerk of the course, Mr Simon Claisse, told The Irish Times organisers needed another 24 hours to consult racing authorities in Britain and Ireland before they could announce proposed dates for a revised meeting. "There are two options," he said. "The week immediately following Easter or a week after that. Punchestown is being run the second week after Easter and we wouldn't necessarily want to run a meeting alongside Punchestown, so we will be talking to the Irish Turf authorities."
He was optimistic that should the suspected case of foot-and-mouth near Lambourn be confirmed, trainers would still run horses at an April Cheltenham festival.
"There is nothing to prevent the movement of horses. Trainers may feel uncomfortable about that, but come four or five weeks' time, their concerns would have decreased."
The possibility of running the festival at a course other than Cheltenham had already been looked at and ruled out: "Once the outbreak began we thought about the `what if' scenario, and whether we might run it somewhere else. But after talking to people about it, we said it's not Cheltenham if it's run at Newbury or another course so that was ruled out."