Disease threatens Dolly the sheep

Dolly has been quarantined by her creators

EDINBURGH, Scotland -- The world's first cloned mammal, Dolly the sheep, could be threatened by the devastating foot-and-mouth disease sweeping through Britain's livestock, her creators have said.

Long-term experiments in cattle breeding also carried out by the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh in Scotland could be affected too.

An estimated 160,000 farm animals across Britain have been slaughtered since the contagious disease was detected three weeks ago.

Scotland now accounts for 26 confirmed outbreaks of foot-and-mouth out of a total of more than 180 that have struck Britain.

Although the chance of foot-and-mouth spreading to Roslin remained fairly slim for the time being, it was still "too close for comfort," assistant director of the institute Dr Harry Griffin said.

Foot-and-mouth was so far confined to the south west of Scotland, about 60 miles (100 km) from the institute's facilities.

When foot-and-mouth broke out, Dolly was quarantined in special accommodation and the crowds who have come to visit her since she was created in 1996 have been banned.

"She is being kept apart," Griffin said, but that would not afford her special protection if the farm was hit by foot-and-mouth and its animals had to be slaughtered.

"She would have to go too," he said.

Roslin was trying to reduce the risk of foot-and-mouth by spraying vehicles with disinfectant, reducing the number of visitors and restricting animal movements.

Griffin said the institute was currently five years into a 10-year experiment and that would cost millions of pounds if the cattle had to be slaughtered.

"If it is terminated half way through, there's an awful lot of money that would have been lost," he said.

Apart from farming, Scotland's tourism industry has been hit by government recommendations that people should stay away from the countryside to prevent the spread of the disease.

Scotland's tourism minister Alasdair Morrison was meeting tourism industry leaders on Tuesday as officials discussed ways to re-open low risk areas of the countryside to the public.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Roslin Institute Online
Foot-and-Mouth Disease
UK Ministry of Agriculture

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