Britain's Foot-and-mouth Cases Figure Reaches 335Nine more confirmed new cases on Monday took the number of outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease in Britain to 335, agriculture ministry officials said.Most of the fresh cases were reported in Cumbria, northwest England, one of the epicenters of the disease. The outbreak has now entered its second month after the first suspected case in southern England was reported on February 19 and confirmed a day later. So far, the vast majority of outbreaks have been in Cumbria and just across the Scottish border in the neighboring regions. But there were also other cases reported in Wales and one in Northern Ireland. A high ranking official in the ministry of agriculture said that the priority now is to protect areas such as west Wales and parts of Scotland which have escaped the disease. It was estimated that more than 150,000 livestock have been slaughtered in Britain in the last month. There is still worries that the figure is surely to be enlarged as more and more new cases are to be found day by day. |
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