First foot and mouth disease case confirmed in France

The case, involving six cows on a farm in the western French province of Mayenne, is also the first confirmed case of the disease on continental Europe since hoof and mouth disease appeared in Britain in mid-February. Farms Minister Jean Glavany said on France-Info radio that he believed that other cases of the disease would appear in France.

"Yes, I fear that there will be other cases, and at the same time I will do everything so that they will be limited," Glavany said. Health Minister Bernard Kouchner recently declared that it would be "a miracle" if France were spared from a foot and mouth outbreak. The government's food safety agency AFSSA said that it was now observing wind direction and the weather in an effort to contain the disease.

The six cows were part of a herd of 114 animals kept near another farm which had imported a herd of sheep from Britain in February. Suspicions were first raised late Monday after they were found to exhibit symptoms of the disease. The entire herd was subsequently put down.

The province's head of veterinary services, Alain Charon, said at the time, "If it were a single symptom, it could be a different disease. In this case, all the symptoms are present, which makes me believe it could be a case of foot and mouth disease." The symptoms include lesions on the mouth and hooves and fever.

In recent weeks, the French government has slaughtered over 40,000 animals, most of them sheep imported from Britain or animals that had been in contact with British animals. In addition, farms on which symptoms of the disease appeared were quarantined.

"We initiated measures that some people considered draconian and drastic, even exaggerated," Glavany said. "Today, we see that it was good to do what we did." The last time foot and mouth disease appeared in France was 1981, when it decimated the pig population in Brittany.

In 1992, the European Union stopped vaccinating animals against foot and mouth disease for cost reasons. A spokesman for the E.U. said recently that the Union would reconsider vaccinating if the situation warranted it. The E.U. disposes of some 30 million doses of the foot and mouth disease vaccine.

In a related development, the French and German foreign and farms ministers will meet late Tuesday in Paris to discuss changes to the E.U.'s common agricultural policy (CAP), diplomatic sources in Paris said. Glavany, Hubert Vedrine, Joschka Fischer and Renate Kuenast will attempt to iron out differences between the two countries on the financing of CAP reforms.

The mad cow and foot and mouth diseases have severely damaged the European meat industry. Compensation demands by breeders and others in the industry threaten to strain the E.U.'s farm budget limits agreed at a 1999 summit in Berlin.

(la/dpa)