Foot and mouth is a viral disease. The animals that get that disease are cows, pigs, sheep and deer. You would recognize that the animals have the disease when they have sores in their mouths and they walk lame. The disease would pass away eventually but the animals would suffer terribly because they could not eat or drink or walk properly. The weaker and young animals would die.
In some countries Like Asia it is permanently there and they vaccinate the animals against it.
People don't really know yet how the first case came to Britain six weeks ago. It has gone out of control in Britain with the worst hit area being Cumbria. Today in Britain, the 2/4/01, there are 901 cases.
The first case in the whole of Ireland was in Meigh, Co Armagh. Everybody in Ireland was devastated when the first case in the Republic was confirmed in the Cooley Peninsula in Co. Louth on Thursday, March 22nd '01.
By Robert Stack