New on-farm quick test for foot-and-mouth

The device uses the same technology as home pregnancy tests and can reveal if foot-and-mouth is present within 10 minutes of taking a sample.

A rapid test was rejected by the Ministry of Agriculture at the height of the 2001 foot-and-mouth outbreak, which meant thousands of animals had to be slaughtered before test results were revealed to be negative.

Dr Nigel Ferris of the Institute of Animal Health’s Pirbright Laboratory has been helping to develop the technology for six years and he hopes the device could save mass slaughter in future outbreaks.

“In effect, we are taking the laboratory to the farm, for on-the-spot testing to support clinical diagnosis,” he said.

The hand-held device takes a small sample of tissue from a suspect animal, the sample then flows up the device and if foot-and-mouth is present, a line forms within 10 minutes.

According to experts, more than one-third of sheep farms and 23 per cent of all livestock premises were wrongly diagnosed of having foot-and-mouth in 2001.

A rapid detection device from the US was rejected at the time because it had not been validated in the UK.

Have your say

Please do not complete the following form field for security reasons.

Name

E-mail

Comment