Suspect case causes uproar in Holland

A furious political row erupted last night in Holland when opposition parties accused the agriculture minister of recklessly …

A furious political row erupted last night in Holland when opposition parties accused the agriculture minister of recklessly easing the ban on the movement of livestock while a suspected outbreak of the disease was being investigated.

If the Dutch cases are confirmed - four goats have tested clinically positive at a breeding farm in Oene, about 65 miles from Amsterdam - it will be the country's first outbreak. A result is expected tomorrow or Friday.

Under pressure from farmers and meat exporters in particular, but against the wishes of Parliament, the minister, Mr Laurens Brinkhorst, allowed a partial easing of stringent regulations on the transport of livestock earlier this week.

The ban had been in place since the mass outbreaks in Britain.

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It was established, following the spread of the disease to France, that at least 47 Dutch importers had brought in animals that could have been in contact with high-risk French handlers.

But the all-out transport ban became a contentious issue as meat exporters and slaughterhouses counted the enormous cost of a freeze on the movement of livestock while, it seemed, the Netherlands was at minimal risk.

The goats suspected of being infected were slaughtered at the weekend on the orders of agriculture ministry inspectors. First tests appeared to rule out contamination but further blood tests indicated there was "serious reason to suspect the presence of foot-and-mouth disease" in the tissue of the slaughtered goats.

The Dutch authorities quickly moved yesterday to suspend, until further notice, all exports of cattle, pigs, sheep and goats at a cost of tens of millions of guilders weekly. All livestock imports have been banned.

A livestock movement ban was yesterday imposed within a six-mile radius of the affected farm.

The Dutch agriculture ministry told The Irish Times last night: "We will not know for definite until Thursday night at the very earliest, or most probably Friday, whether the suspected cases are definitely foot-and-mouth disease. If the suspected cases prove positive then we are facing a nightmare situation. "Many farmers' livelihoods would obviously be devastated but for weeks, with the spread of the disease in Britain, we have been preparing a type of state-of-war strategy to deal with the worst-case scenario."