A MOCK foot-and-mouth control exercise is to take place on April 25 and 26 to establish the effectiveness of the UK's contingency plans to combat a potential future outbreak.

The Scottish Government, alongside the Animal and Plant Health Agency, Defra, the Welsh Government and the Northern Irish Government, are taking part in a UK-wide foot-and-mouth disease simulation exercise called Exercise Blackthorn, which will simulate a medium to large scale outbreak that has spread from England to Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, before concluding on June 7 in a final table-top exercise where the simulated outbreak will be investigated to the point of disease eradication and recovery aspects considered.

Scotland’s Chief Veterinary Officer Sheila Voas commented: ‘‘Regularly reviewing our plans and identifying any issues that may arise is vitally important when responding to a disease outbreak. A UK-wide exercise of this nature provides us with the ideal opportunity to test our plans, while sharing good practices with other administrations across the UK in order to improve our effectiveness."

An exercise evaluation report will be published in the autumn 2018.