He said he was still sure the best way to stop a further spread was to continue movement restrictions on all farm animals. The continued increase in the number of cases means that the restrictions on the movement of animals would have to be extended beyond next Friday when they officially end, he said. A new problem is the possibility that a small number of sheep become carriers. These are animals that have the disease and get better without the farmer noticing. These sheep are not normally infectious but if they are put in a stressful situation, for example loaded in a lorry and carried long distances, then they could pass on the disease.
Sheep can be carriers for up to nine weeks after recovering from the infection.
To guard against new outbreaks among sheep that had not been detected with the disease, a regime of movement restrictions would have to be imposed. Yesterday, Lady Hayman, the junior agriculture minister, agreed with farmers' leaders a limited movement of animals for welfare reasons. Cattle, pigs and sheep can now be moved across roads on farms for milking or to give birth. Where animals are on hills and need to be brought to shelter for lambing they can be moved up to three miles but both kinds of movement require a special licence. The wider scheme for the collecting of animals from small farms to holding centres and then moving them on for slaughter has been postponed because of the dangers of spreading the disease and possible objections from the European Union, which had banned such movements on the continent.