(Dr Colin Fink is a Virologist & Hon. Senior Lecturer in Biological Sciences University of Warwick)

Debbie Reynold's (CVO) latest briefing seemed to be reasonably coherent . However , the present 'no vaccination' strategy , makes no acknowledgment of the possibility of wild life vectors who do not, I believe, have cognisance of a 3 km exclusion zone nor 10 km protection zones.

Also the present policy assumes one distribution of virus by primary intent only ( ? accident ? sabotage ).

Vaccination around the present areas, as I suggested earlier, would prevent any further environmental virus distribution from having much clinical effect and would lower any re-excretion rates of virus into the environment. - a basic tenet of vaccination . If the present policy is successful, it will be a measure of good luck in ignoring these two variables.

One of the more worrying aspects of the clinical presentation of the second affected animal group in this outbreak, was the profound onset of the illness simultaneously in a number of animals . This strongly suggests a high viral load within the environment that infected this group all together.

That to my mind would be one reason why vaccine for this outbreak should be used sooner rather than later.

Colin Fink - 10th August 2007