Not Over Till The Fat Sheep Singes

As you can't fail to have noticed - okay, you might have caught a hint through a blur of festive haze - foot and mouth is almost officially off the menu, but as they say, it's not over till the fat sheep singes...

It's now just over three months since the last outbreak of the disease on 30 September 2001 and Cumbria, Durham and Yorkshire have both been declared foot and mouth free - that doesn't mean that all rights of way are open, but apart from areas within 3km of previously infected premises that haven't yet been declared clear, most should be. The regulations governing the cleaning process are quite complicated - see our previous foot and mouth updates - and some areas may not be fully open for up to 12 months, should the farmer choose not to restock.

The lifting of infected status from Cumbria, Durham and Yorks leaves Northumbria as the sole 'infected' county, but with the area on the brink of being declared 'disease free', Defra yesterday slaughtered a prize flock of 2100 sheep in the North Tyne Valley.

The cull was described as 'a precaution' and came about after blood tests showed that two of the sheep carried antibodies to the foot and mouth virus meaning that they were exposed to the virus at some point in the past. There is, say Defra, no evidence of active disease in Northumbria and of 250,000 blood tests carried out in the county since November, only 12 have proved positive.

Almost four million animals have now been slaughtered and it's a depressing way to start the New Year, though with luck it will be an isolated blip rather than a sign of the return of the infection.