Word: pirbright
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...affected in less than a week in the Foot-and-Mouth Outbreak of 1967 - the worst outbreak of the disease in Britain until the infamous 2001 epidemic. The virus that caused the outbreak - later termed 01 BFS67 - was isolated, and a sample sent to a secure research facility in Pirbright, Surrey, for future work on vaccines...
...BFS67 is back - on a farm less than 5 miles (8 km) from the Pirbright research laboratory dedicated to eliminating it. Official confirmation is not expected until tomorrow, but biosecurity experts suspect that the lab - home to a government research center and a company that makes FMD vaccines - was the source of the outbreak...
...news raised hopes that the disease, which causes blistering and fever in pigs, cattle, sheep, goats and deer, was not spread by other animals and could therefore be easily contained. But it has also put the safety of bioresearch facilities such as Pirbright under scrutiny...
...which drew criticism for the standard of some of its laboratories. According to the BBC, the review said standards at some institute facilities were "not commensurate with what might be expected for work with infectious diseases." The report also raised questions about the loss of key skills at the Pirbright laboratory as senior personnel left and were not replaced...
...Leading British Microbiologist Hugh Pennington said both Pirbright and Plum Island face similar problems. "Both are housed in old buildings, and the aging infrastructure presents challenges. The biosecurity at both centers is known to be very good, but that's not to say it's perfect, and with research into such dangerous diseases you really need to be state-of-the-art," he told TIME...