Major foot-and-mouth exercise under way

A major exercise to test government’s ability to deal with a significant outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease is taking place today and tomorrow (9-10 November).

Exercise Silver Birch is simulating a national outbreak of the disease to test the effectiveness of existing plans and policies to control and eradicate such an event.

It involves Animal Health, DEFRA, the Scottish Government, the Welsh Assembly Government and key operational partners.

Gordon Hickman, head of contingency planning at Animal Health, said: “Exercises such as this allow us to identify better ways of working, and help ensure our approach to managing a significant disease outbreak is properly co-ordinated.

“We must continue to test and improve our disease control measures, and put ourselves in the best possible position to minimise the impact on farmers and their livestock should the worst occur.”

As part of the exercise, a National Disease Control Centre and multiple Local Disease Control Centres have been established, as would happen with a real major outbreak.

A Disease Strategy Group has been set up in Edinburgh, and an Emergency Coordination Centre (Wales) in Cardiff.

The EU requires Member States to exercise foot-and-mouth disease contingency plans twice within a five-year period, or during the five-year period after a major outbreak has been effectively controlled and eradicated.

An evaluation report for Silver Birch will be published in early 2011.