End of Outbreak
The final case was reported on Whygill Head Farm near Appleby in Cumbria on 30 September. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) downgraded to "high risk" the last area to be denoted "infected" on 29 November. The last cull in the U.K. was performed on 1 January 2002 on 2000 sheep at Donkley Woods Farm, Bellingham, Northumberland. Restrictions on livestock movement were retained into 2002.
The use of a vaccine to halt the spread of the disease was repeatedly considered during the outbreak, but the government never decided to use it after pressure from the National Farmers Union. Although the vaccine was believed to be effective, export rules would prevent the export of British livestock in the future, and it was decided that this was too great a price to pay, although this was controversial because the value of the export industry (£592 million per year; MAFF figures reported by the Guardian) was small compared to losses to tourism resulting from the measures taken. Following the outbreak, the law was changed to allow vaccinations rather than just culling.
The consensus today is that the FMD virus came from infected or contaminated meat that was part of the garbage being fed to pigs at Burnside Farm in Heddon-on-the-wall. The garbage had not been properly heat-sterilized and the virus had thus been allowed to infect the pigs. Seeing as FMD virus was apparently not present in the UK beforehand and given the import restrictions for meat from countries known to harbour FMD, it is likely that the infected meat had been illegally imported to the UK. Such imports are likely to be for the catering industry and a total ban on feeding of catering waste containing meat or meat products was introduced early in the epidemic.
Read more about this topic: 2001 United Kingdom Foot-and-mouth Outbreak