大象传媒

• The worst outbreak so far was in 1967 when 400,000 animals were slaughtered.
• In 1981 a single case occurred on the Isle of Wight.
• Since 1982 Britain has been classified as free of the disease.
• The total number of confirmed cases in the UK has reached 1.928 cases.
  3,656,000 animals have been slaughtered.
  38,000 awaiting slaughter
  21,000 awaiting disposal

Day 35 - March 27
Although it's almost five weeks since the first case was spotted, only now is there a sense that the epidemic is being brought under any sort of control. The mass burial of carcasses began in Cumbria yesterday and will be extended to Wales today with the army playing an important role. Meanwhile the investigation into why and where the foot and mouth crisis originated seemed to reach a conclusion, blaming it on pigswill and Agriculture Minister Baroness Human appeared to answer questions about whether the crisis had been too much for the Ministry to handle.

Day 34
The carcasses of sheep slaughtered in Cumbria are due to begin arriving at a mass burial site today. The site will hold up to half a million animals. But is on farm-burial a better option? Meanwhile with the crisis continuing to worsen Tony Blair's got just a week left to decide whether or not to press ahead with the General Election on May 3 - the date the County Council elections are already scheduled to take place. The chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party Clive Soley says most Labour MPs think the elections should go ahead on May 3

Day 31
It now appears that there may have been foot and mouth disease in Wales in January - weeks before it was first discovered in Essex. We hear from Tony Edwards, the chief veterinary officer for Wales. Meanwhile John Major warns Tony Blair that he would have to accept responsibility if he called a General Election and campaigning contributed to spreading foot-and-mouth around the country. The Marquess of Bath is worried about the effect of the crisis on his own animals at Longleat.

Day 29
A first step today towards reopening the countryside - the Department of the Environment is hosting a meeting today to consider how to go about lifting restrictions on public rights of way. That in spite of the fact that yesterday saw the biggest number of confirmed cases of foot and mouth in a single day so far. So is it safe to start allowing the public back to some areas? And come to that how much of a no-go zone is the countryside anyway? We talked to Anthony Gibson the South West regional director of the National Farmer's Union.