Institute for Animal Health - an unhealthy concern 3 - same virus this time as 1967 outbreak - IAH website disappears - human vector for distribution

Gypsy Petulengro has been at work again and Lord Patel repeats what he previously posted concerning the FMV outbreaks (2 so far) in Surrey.

Those with a long memory might look back at the IAH 201 Annual report Page 25 -
" the source of the current FMD outbreak in the UK has still to be determined. (still the case today 7/8/07)

Further analysis of the UK virus showed that it was closely related to the O1 Manisa strain held as concentrated inactivated viral antigen in the International Vaccine Bank and that this strain could be used to vaccinate animals, if required. This antigen was formulated into 500,000 doses of vaccine and held ready for use.

Note : The International Vaccine Bank at the Institute for Animal Health, Pirbright, has eight members: Australia, Ireland ,Finland, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom ,Malta
Within 72 hours of request, 300 000 doses of vaccine can be formulated. Currently, the following vaccine strains are stored at the IVB: O1 Lausanne, O1 Manisa, A22 Iraq, A24 Cruzeiro, C1 Oberhaven ,ASIA 1, India A15 Thailand

It is said that the FMV strain isolated by IAH scientists from the first outbreak have now identified (5/7/07 )the virus strain as very close to 01/BFS (67), a strain isolated originally in 1967 and propagated as a Reference Laboratory strain used for research and commercial vaccine production. It has not circulated in Europe for 40 years.

The DEFRA website has Update 4th August "The present indications are that this strain is a 01 BFS67 – like virus, isolated in the 1967 Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak in Great Britain."

Lord Patel has been researching the decline in funding, the continuing cuts in funding and staff cuts of the IAH who hold this world resource of Virus samples .... and hinted at the possibility of aggrieved ex or current staff.

What pray are the epidemiologists views that a second FMV outbreak occurs of the identical strain that has been stored at IAH since the 1st outbreak in 1967 and has not circulated in Europe for 40 years. Accident? Design ? Or simply malign ?

What pray are the epidemiologists views that the 2001 FMV outbreak occurs of the identical / very similiar strain that was stored at IAH. Accident? Design ? Or simply malign ?

The 2 Photographs are from the IAH Annual report 2001 Page 25 - albeit 6 years ago - have things changed ?

UPDATE 7/8/07 The Health and Safety (HSE ) report "Initial report on potential breaches to biosecurity at the Pirbright site, 2007" is now available and can be read here.

They report (inter alia)

"We have initiated further studies intended to provide additional molecular information on the virus types in use at both organisations. This requires detailed technical analysis and the results are not available for inclusion in this report but are expected within a week. " ( ie as Lord Patel predicted , the results would be "ambiguous" and another pound to a pinch of snuff will coninue to be so)

Potential for release from the site by human movements

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.

It is worth noting that a list of all IAH scientific employees and their related activities down to the level of individual projects, was on the new website which is/was being developed ( http://www.iah.ac.uk/ )which now directs you to the old website. The new site was there on Saturday. Google has a cache of the new website as retrieved on 31 Jul 2007 20:41:50 GMT. but if you try the links you get ;

Server Application Unavailable
The web application you are attempting to access on this web server is currently unavailable. Please hit the "Refresh" button in your web browser to retry your request.
Administrator Note: An error message detailing the cause of this specific request failure can be found in the system event log of the web server. Please review this log entry to discover what caused this error to occur.

Curious. Try looking at the Google cache. of the new website ... it's still there.