Merial Animal Health responds to preliminary HSE findings on foot and mouth outbreak
Merial Animal Health, which is at the centre of the UK Health & Safety Executive’s investigation of the source of the foot and mouth outbreak, says it fully supports the investigation and will continue to co-operate and provide complete access to its centre.
The company has conducted intensive internal investigations and, as a result, continues to have complete confidence in its processes and procedures for health, safety and environmental protection, quality control, quality assurance and regulatory compliance. “To date, we have not been able to establish any evidence that the virus may have been transported out of our centre by humans,” it said.
Merial shares the HSE view that the risk of airborne transmission is negligible. However, it wishes to clarify its position regarding the references made to the role water may have played in the outbreak.
“There is a suggestion that waste water released to the environment by Merial may have been a possible cause of the outbreak. Merial does not release water from the shared Pirbright site. We ensure that the water we use in our virus production is treated; we then transfer it to the IAH who treat it further and release it.
“We are committed to playing our role in establishing the cause and, like everyone else, want to ensure that lessons are learned, that measures are taken to control, contain and eradicate this outbreak as quickly as possible and, that future outbreaks are prevented,” it added.