Lab warned over new foot and mouth scare

Health and Safety Executive (HSE) officials issued bosses at the Institute of Animal Health (IAH) at Pirbright, Woking, with notices to improve their practices following the discovery but stressed the incident did not involve the release of infectious materials.

The HSE said it had issued two “improvement notices” to bosses at Pirbright following one incident in January this year and another in February.

The former, which relates to the leakage of a small amount of material – none of which contained virus – has now been complied with but the second referring to the cracked flask is currently being appealed by IAH bosses.

An HSE spokesman said: “HSE can confirm that two Improvement Notices have been issued, one of which has been complied with and one of which has been appealed. While the appeal is being heard, HSE is not able to comment on the content of the appealed notice.”

An IAH spokesman said: “The second notice relates to the cracking of a flask containing foot and mouth disease virus discovered during defrosting within a Class II MBSC Safety Cabinet within a bio secure laboratory. The cabinet and the surrounding area were thoroughly cleaned. No virus escaped to the outside world and there was no risk that it would do so. IAH and HSE are currently discussing the issues around the second incident and therefore no further comment can be made at this time.”

The 2007 outbreak of foot and mouth brought livestock movement to standstill for weeks around the country while it was dealt with.