Neglected, leaky pipes and humid summer record of England probably combined to cause recent outbreak of FMD countries ( FMD), according to two reports published Friday. The virus probably escaped from a company, Merial, who grew up large amounts of it for vaccine production, say the studies. Yet the reports attribute the bulk of the blame for the outbreak of the Institute of Animal Health (IAH), a government laboratory on the same site in Pirbright that owned the aging network of pipes underground wastewater. IAH seems biosafety raped by other means also.
quick government action has helped contain the outbreak, first confirmed Aug. 3, only two farms in Surrey ( Science NOW, August 6). However, the National Farmers Union puts the economic impact of the accident at more than $ 100 million, and some politicians have called for the resignation of the Ministry of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs ( Defra), which oversees biosecurity IAH and also funds two-thirds of his work.
genomic comparisons of the virus home to Merial and IAH strains can not identify from which of the two laboratories virus escaped, according to reports, one led by Health and Safety UK Executive (HSE), a government agency, and the other by molecular epidemiologist at Imperial College London Brian Spratt. Yet the signs say it is more likely that the virus came from Merial, where she grew up in two tanks of 00 liters shortly before the accident, producing a million times more virus than IAH used in its small experiments ladder.
But the virus has probably escaped through leaks in a pipe complex system. These pipes taking water to a shared effluent treatment plant, managed by IAH, where caustic soda is used to raise the pH to 12 to kill any remaining virus during a detention period of 12 hours. Reports suggested that the live virus seeped into the ground as a result, especially as the excessive rains of July may have caused the overflow drains. In this case, construction crews dug holes around the leaks at the time, and heavy trucks - without proper supervision IAH - led in the mud probably the responsible virus. Some of these vehicles took later, a road that went very close to the first infected farm. From there, the farmer may have transmitted the virus to his flock.
IAH, part of the U.K. Biotechnology and Research Council biological sciences (BBSRC), has the archaic drainage system, the HSE report said. He was also aware of some network problems. In fact, IAH, Defra, BBSRC and Merial debated an upgrade since 03; the problem was money. The results are a blow to the reputation of IAH, a research center of FMD world-renowned says Andrew Mathieson, an expert in environmental health at Western University of England in Bristol. But they should also serve as a more general warning. "My concern is: What about the many other research institutions of the same age?" he said.
Defra says it will adopt a series of recommendations to solve problems in Pirbright, like keeping better track of visitors and ensuring that biosecurity agents communicate. AHI, which was built in 1924, is due to be almost entirely rebuilt by 2012, although some funding problems remain.
Related Sites
- The HSE report (PDF)
- Spratt report (PDF)
- the response of UK Government (PDF)
- information of FMD from the UK Department of Environment, Food and rural Affairs
0 Komentar