For livestock farmers in the UK, these are worrying times. With the country still not clear of its latest brush with foot and mouth disease, they are now facing uncertainty over an outbreak of bluetongue, a midge-borne virus that invaded northern Europe last year and has now reached the UK. Is there worse to come? More importantly, how will the authorities deal with these and future outbreaks? Can we expect pyres of burning carcasses like those that traumatised farmers and the public during the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic in the UK?
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