British authorities are doing everything they can to eradicate foot-and-mouth disease, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Saturday.
Speaking after a meeting of the government's emergency contingencies committee COBRA, Brown said, "I want to do everything in our power immediately to get to the scientific evident, to look at the source of what has happened, to set up a number of inquiries so that we can actually move very quickly to eradicate this disease in Britain."
"We will be doing, night and day, everything in our power to make sure that what happens quickly and decisively in way that can reassure people that everything is being done," he added.
British government has already announced a nationwide ban on the movement of all cattle, pigs and sheep to stop the new epidemic after some 60 animals at a farm near Guildford, Surrey, in southern England were tested positive for the foot-and-mouth disease on Thursday.
The European Union is to ban British livestock exports as a result of the disease, and Japanese government also decided to ban British pork imports.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said that a 3-km "protection zone" and a 10-km "surveillance zone" had been established around the farm.
The latest outbreak of this disease raised fears of another catastrophe like the one in 2001, which brought chaos to Britain and left farming and tourist industries devastated.
(Xinhua News Agency August 5, 2007)
