IAH Pirbright - DEFRA report on progress and update on the Legionnaires Disease

Fred Landeg Deputy Chief Veterinary Officer at DEFRA has produced a report available here (PDF alert 2.7 Mb) which is clear, precise, detailed and well illustrated, about the current FMV outbreak.

Page 12 (of 15) shows a fascinating "hypothesised" timeline which details that Week Commencing 16th July commercial vaccine was produced (at Merial site) using O1BFS1967. Extract shown above.

Backtracking, the IAH calculate that the period 17th - 23rd July was the most likely period of infection derived from SOURCE tracing.

In this period - on the 20th July, "Drains from Mains sewer opened and flooded field "
The first clinical signs were observed on 29th July. (water based effluents leave the site in two ways one heat treated and one chemically treated, by different routes - it appears that all effluent is the final responsibility of IAH)

The report concludes "This is an evolving situation and is subject to an on-going review"

At the warmwell site they have identified that the ISO10 building at Pirbright, where the person with Legionnaires disease had been working, had been built the previous year to replace SAPO-4/ACDP-2 containment level accommodation - "for work on exotic viral diseases and vaccine development." This information was obtained from the IAH Annual report 2004

As Mary at Warmwell raised yesterday - There's more at stake than paying compensation to farmers if Pirbright is found to be responsible for the leak - and comments on gossip / news reports in Switzerland whether Pirbright will be able to remain a reference laboratory of the European Union for all FMD work, bluetongue illness and vesicular illnesses, has not yet been discussed. This year the British laboratory has received some 750,000 Euros towards its work."

Amazingly there has not been a peep about bio-terrorism in all the Press /TV reports - but the whole history of IAH funding shows the critical importance of having adequate, facilities, equipment, trained staff - which it is evident are lacking.

We repeat.

See also :Memorandum from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council to Select Committee on Science and Technology November 2006

BBSRC—FUNDED RESEARCH OF RELEVANCE TO COMBATING TERRORISM4.

Although most infectious diseases of agricultural plants and livestock rarely pose a direct threat to people (with some notable exceptions—eg anthrax, TB) they do provide an opportunity for "economic terrorism" by groups intent on the deliberate introduction and dissemination of disease agents in the environment.etc., etc.,