The Plan also includes the field manual to be used by the staff on the spot and the laboratory and vaccination arrangements that would apply. A training programme is included in the contingency plan and staff are trained regularly in all aspects of the operation of the procedures contained in it. The Plan document also identifies, in some detail, the wide range of relevant statutory powers available in legislation and clarifies how the direct costs arising in the operation of the emergency measures would be funded. There are no serious human health implications, although humans in contact with infected animals very occasionally get mild respiratory symptoms. Humans do not become infected by eating meat from infected animals.
Infected animals begin by excreting the virus a few days before signs of the disease develop.
Pigs in particular produce large numbers of virus particles. Airborne spread of the disease takes place readily. The prevailing meteorological conditions and local topography determine the distance that the disease can travel and this may be considerable. For example, circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that the outbreak on the Isle of Wight in 1981 resulted from the airborne spread of the of the virus from Brittany in northern France. The disease is also spread mechanically by the movement of animals, persons, vehicles and other things, which have been contaminated by the virus.