Britain's foot-and-mouth crisis may have spread across the Irish Sea to Northern Ireland, officials said Wednesday, as a farm close to the border with Ireland was sealed off for examination of suspect sheep.
Northern Ireland Agriculture Minister Brid Rogers said that the south Armagh farm had been put in quarantine after the discovery of "suspect lesions" in the flock of sheep at the site.
"As a precautionary measure we have placed this holding under surveillance," said Rogers. "There is a restriction zone around it."
Officials were carrying out tests on the sheep which were transported to the farm from Carlisle, northwest England, just before the foot-and-mouth crisis broke last Wednesday.
Ireland has taken emergency measures to prevent the highly infectious disease from afflicting its own livestock, including calling off Saturday's Six Nations rugby international between Wales and Ireland in Cardiff for fear that fans would carry the virus back to Ireland – BELFAST (AFP)
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