Anthrax found in Wiltshire cow herd

Anthrax in cows

Anthrax outbreak casts shadow over homes site

Anthrax is one of the deadliest and oldest diseases known to man. It can infect human beings as well as livestock and, although it is extremely rare in Britain, in its most severe form is nearly always fatal if not treated promptly with antibiotics.

Fears of an outbreak of anthrax caused by spores that have lain dormant for decades is delaying the start of a major housing development. Spores of the anthrax bacteria, lying inert in the soil, are thought to have been disturbed by ditch-dredging work on Storridge Farm, near Westbury in Wiltshire, where three cattle have died of the disease since early June. Local people fear that the spores might have been carried along a stream from an abandoned leather works on the outskirts of Westbury, where infected hides are said to have been buried in the past. The farm is about a mile- and-a-half downstream from the works. The former tannery is on a 50-acre site, mostly now farmland, that has been earmarked for development. West Wiltshire District Council is considering a proposal to build 800 homes, a superstore and a primary school.

There is pressure to develop the site as the council has been allocated 11,000 of the 65,000 houses that the Department of the Environment says Wiltshire must provide by 2011. It is government policy to devel op old industrial sites where possible. Former workers at the tan nery say that in the immediate postwar years, imported foreign hides often came with an anthrax warning. One who worked at the plant from 1946 to 1981 remembers two mild cases among employees. Until the latest outbreak at Storridge Farm, no case of anthrax among cattle had been reported in the area for more than 20 years. It is thought the farmer may have disturbed old anthrax spores while dredging a ditch and spread them unwittingly over adjacent pasture where cattle were grazing.

Anthrax found in Wiltshire cow herd

Anthrax has been confirmed in two cows on a farm near Westbury, Wiltshire, the Ministry of Agriculture disclosed yesterday. The farm, which has not been identified, is three miles downstream from a disused tannery where local people say infected hides had been buried more than 30 years ago. Anthrax was diagnosed in the first cow on June 10 and in the second on July 1. The disease may be characterised by high fever and diarrhoea but often the animal dies suddenly without showing any signs of sickness. Infection is usually through food or water. Two or three cases of anthrax are notified to the ministry every year. The Wiltshire outbreak is the first this year. Any animal that gets the disease must be burnt and the affected farms quarantined and disinfected.

In November 1994, three cows on a farm in Gloucestershire were infected by anthrax spores thought to have been left in the soil after another animal with the disease had been buried there 52 years ago. Even burial in quicklime is not sufficient to destroy the spores.

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