Animal disease control under threat

THE Government is not prioritising the threat of animal diseases which could be devastating to farmers, rural communities and society, MPs have warned.

Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee says the UK’s main animal disease facility, the Animal and Plant Health Agency’s (APHA) site near Weybridge in Surrey, has been “left to deteriorate to an alarming extent”.

That is despite the devastating consequences of diseases, such as foot and mouth disease and the recent avian influenza, for farming communities, while Covid-19 has shown the extent of the impact when an animal-sourced virus jumps the species barrier into humans.

Currently, the UK faces threats from bovine tuberculosis and new potential viruses, such as African swine fever and diseases that affect pets such as rabies, a report from the committee said.

APHA’s Weybridge site is the UK’s primary science facility for managing threats from animal disease but the Environment Department (Defra) has “comprehensively failed in its historical management” of the complex.

Inadequate management and under-investment at Weybridge has left it vulnerable to a major breakdown, highlighted by a generator failure which led to a loss of power to some of the high containment buildings, which could hamper efforts to deal with an animal disease outbreak, the MPs said.

The committee found the site had “over 1,000 single points of failure that would cause major disruption” to operations while redevelopment will cost £2.8bn.