ANIMAL diseases are becoming increasingly internationalised. In March 2006 the UK was hit by the announcement in the House of Commons that there might be a connection between BSE in cattle and variant CJD in the human population.
That link has never been proven conclusively, but the subsequent media coverage cost the farming industry millions.
Then on 23 February, 2001, foot-and-mouth disease was discovered in Northumberland. Over the subsequent six months the UK suffered the world’s worst epidemic of FMD with 2,030 confirmed cases of which 187 were in Scotland.