'No breaches' at animal labs

As details emerged linking the disease found on a farm near Guildford to the Pirbright laboratory a few miles away, the farmer whose cattle contracted the disease said the outbreak was not his fault.

The Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has revealed the strain of the virus on the infected farm near the village of Normandy was the same as one used at the facility and not one recently found in animals.

The Pirbright site is shared by the Government-funded Institute for Animal Health (IAH), an international diagnostic laboratory, and pharmaceutical company Merial Animal Health, both of which said there had been no breaches in their biosecurity procedures.

Farmer Derrick Pride, whose cattle were slaughtered after they were found to be infected with the FMD strain on Friday, said "It is nothing to do with us. It is not our fault. It is something beyond our control." Mr Pride, speaking from his farm in Elstead, Surrey, added that the sympathy being offered locally to his family was "giving a lot of comfort to us."

A nationwide ban on the movement of cows, sheep and pigs and the export of cloven-hoofed animals and animal products were enforced within hours of the disease being diagnosed.

Experts from the Health and Safety Executive are investigating the site and Environment Secretary Hilary Benn has commissioned a review of biosecurity arrangements led by Professor Brian Spratt of Imperial College, London.

But Mr Benn stressed that, while the link to the site was a "promising lead", it was too early to say Pirbright was definitely the source of the infection.

Both the Institute for Animal Health and Merial insisted they had good biosecurity procedures which had not been breached.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said he would work "day and night" to get to the bottom of what caused the outbreak.