Initial tests carried out for foot-and-mouth disease on a pig found with blisters in a central England slaughterhouse have proved negative, a UK farm ministry spokesman said this morning.
"The initial test results are negative but further tests are still ongoing and the final results are probably not going to be known until next week," the spokesman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) said.
The suspect case came up yesterday when veterinarians discovered a pig with blisters on its body that might have been due to foot-and-mouth disease or swine vesicular disease.
Britain was declared free of the world's worst foot-and-mouth outbreak in January this year by the world animal health body (OIE), after millions of animals had been slaughtered in a disaster which cost the British economy more than £8 billion ($12 billion).
AFP