Britain's environment secretary warned Thursday of a new leak of the foot and mouth virus from a laboratory in southwest England linked to an outbreak of the disease earlier this year.
In a statement to parliament, Environment Secretary Hilary Benn says an inspection team was sent to the site Wednesday to investigate and was assured the live virus had not been released into the wider environment.
The virus is believed to have escaped through a leaking valve last week at the Pirbright laboratory, about 55 kilometres southwest of London.
The Pirbright site contains the government-funded Institute for Animal Health, a diagnostic laboratory, and vaccine producer Merial Animal Health, a British unit of the U.S.-French pharmaceutical firm Merial Ltd.
The site was blamed for leaking the virus into the environment in August.
Benn said Merial reported the leak after discovering a shortfall Monday in its supplies of the virus. The company then identified the source of the leak as a valve on production equipment that separates waste from the live virus.
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