U.S. Steps Up Foot-and-Mouth Safeguards

WASHINGTON —  With suspected cases of foot-and-mouth disease in North Carolina, the United States on Friday stepped up efforts against the highly contagious disease by banning imports of used farm equipment from nations with the virus.

U.S. officials said a handful of pigs suspected of carrying foot-and-mouth disease in a North Carolina slaughterhouse facility tested negative. Two other pigs in a neighboring county also were being tested as a precaution.

The devastating virus cripples pigs, cattle, sheep and goats for months and sharply reduces milk and meat production. The virus, which rarely endangers humans, can be carried on and spread by shoes and clothing.

U.S. animal health inspectors and border patrols have been on heightened alert since the highly contagious disease jumped from Britain into France earlier this month.

The disease has since spread to the Netherlands and Ireland. Argentina, Saudi Arabia and a number of other countries also have discovered cases of foot-and-mouth.

U.S. officials have warned that an outbreak here, free of foot-and-mouth since 1929, could cause billions of dollars worth of losses to farmers.

An inspector on a routine visit to Robersonville Packing in Martin County, near Raleigh, N.C., on Thursday found fever- and blister-like lesions in the mouths and between the toes of at least three hogs set for slaughter, said Danny Peet, owner of the plant.

His slaughterhouse processes about 85 hogs a day, along with cattle, goats and lamb.

The hogs were immediately moved to an isolation pen. After slaughter, tissue samples from their lungs, feet, mouths and tongues were sent to a U.S. Department of Agriculture lab in Plum Island, N.Y.

USDA spokesman Kevin Herglotz said results showed the pigs did not have the disease.

The USDA also quarantined and took tissue samples from two pigs in neighboring Sampson County, he said. Tests results were expected today.

The pigs were from the same supplier and showed similar symptoms as the slaughterhouse animals, he said. USDA officials would not disclose the name of the supplier.

North Carolina’s $1.2-billion-a-year hog industry is concentrated in the eastern part of the state, a rural area hard hit by Hurricane Floyd in 1999. North Carolina ranks as one of the largest U.S. hog producing states, with 3,600 hog farms and 63 slaughterhouses.

Rep. Bob Etheridge, a North Carolina Democrat, urged the Bush administration to approve emergency funding for USDA inspectors and veterinarians.

“This disease represents a threat to our national economic security,” Etheridge, who owns a cattle farm, said in a letter to President Bush.

In Chicago, live cattle and hog futures traded at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange fell sharply near midday in reaction to news of the suspected case in North Carolina. Prices rebounded immediately after the USDA reported the tests were negative.

USDA officials said they routinely test about 400 animals annually for foot-and-mouth disease.

Industry officials expected the number of U.S. livestock tested for the virus to escalate as the crippling disease spreads in Europe.

As an added effort to keep out foot-and-mouth, the United States on Friday banned imports of all used farm equipment from the European Union and other nations suspected of having the virus.

Earlier this month, Alabama officials quarantined a shipment of about 100 used tractors that had been displayed at a farm trade show in Britain.

Alabama state officials began disinfecting the John Deere tractors earlier this week at a U.S. port in Mobile.

Molly Frazier, a USDA port director at Mobile, said the used farm equipment was unloaded from shipping containers at a special facility on the Alabama dock and immediately sprayed with a bleach and water solution.

The shipment was headed for a tractor dealer in northern Mississippi, an Alabama official said.