The foot-and-mouth outbreak could have been caused deliberately by a leak from one of the two laboratories at a research centre at Pirbright in Surrey, investigators for the Health and Safety Executive said.
The HSE found that accidental or human activity almost certainly caused the outbreak at a farm four miles from the two high-security laboratories - one belonging to the public Institute for Animal Health, the other to the private American company Merial Animal Health.
They said that airborne spread of the virus was not likely and that a waterborne leak was possible, but less likely than direct contact by a worker from the plant.
After the initial conclusions were released, Gordon Brown said: “The work goes on to isolate, to contain, control and eradicate the disease.” The Prime Minister talked of a “strategy of making a risk- based assessment of what is happening”.
The HSE report said: “There are various potential routes for accidental or deliberate transfer of material from the site. We have investigated site management systems and records and spoken to a number of employees. As a result we are pursuing lines of inquiry. “Release by human movement must also be considered a real possibility. Further investigation of the above issues is required and is being urgently pursued.”
The HSE dismissed airborne spread of the virus, saying: “We are further exploring the meteorological data, but at this stage, we consider there to be a negligible combined likelihood that there was an airborne release from the IAH or the Merial sites which was subsequently transferred to the first affected farm between the 14 and 25 July 2007.”
The findings that the outbreak was almost certainly caused by a leak from one of the two labs and probably by human contact with one of the farms shocked the ministers and officials meeting at the Cobra emergency committee.
Both laboratories vigorously denied there was evidence of lapses in their security systems. This appeared to be supported by the report, which said: “We found no evidence of any working practices or incidents such as laboratory spillages or leakages from plant or equipment which could have led to a release of the virus strain within the contained working environment at either organisation.” The likelihood that biose-curity was breached raises alarming questions about the safety of Britain’s biological research centres, and has caused outrage among farmers.
The report said the HSE had investigated site management systems and spoken to a number of employees about the safety regime at both labs. There were reports yesterday that staff had complained the system was “leaky as a sieve” and contaminated workers mixed with dinner ladies in the staff canteen at Merial.
Farmers are almost certain to demand compensation from the Government as both laboratories are licensed and inspected by the Government.
The report put to the Cobra meeting said that the HSE supported Merial’s decision to suspend the use of live pathogens to make vaccines. That was seen by government sources as a signal that Merial was under suspicion for the escape, but the HSE report refused to allocate blame. Merial was known to be using the live pathogens in the production of a foot-and-mouth vaccine on 16 July, a fortnight before the first signs of sickness were noticed in the first herd to be affected.
The HSE said more work was needed to establish whether the leak could have travelled through sewers, possibly driven by recent flooding, and whether it could then have spread to the farms in some other way - on foot or by air. HSE staff inspected flooding on one of the fields at the first farm to be affected, but the tests to find the source of the leak were inconclusive.
Preliminary investigations into whether surface water from flooding from the site could have reached and contaminated the affected farm have indicated that the chances were negligible.
The HSE stressed it was having to follow up more lines of inquiry before reaching conclusions. It has the power to bring criminal prosecutions but it appeared unlikely last night that the laboratories would face legal action.
The Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Hilary Benn, said he agreed with a recommendation by the Chief Veterinary Officer, Debby Reynolds, that footpaths in the protection zone which now covers the two infected farms, be closed.
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