The Health and Safety Executive interim report into the source of the foot-and-mouth outbreak found a “strong possibility” that the virus came from the animal health research complex at Pirbright, but did not specify which of the two laboratories there was to blame or how it escaped. Here are there theories, and the HSE’s assessments of how likely they are:
Airborne release
An escape of the virus into the air from either the government-run Institute of Animal Health or the US-owned company, Merial Animal Health Limited, was initially considered one of the likelier sources of the outbreak. A “plume” of the virus could easily travel several miles across the countryside in the right weather conditions.
But the report found “no evidence” of spillages or leakages