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Extract from

Royal Society Infectious Disease Inquiry Follow-Up review (pdf file)

"Defra should commission research to improve the methodology used to identify dangerous contacts"

From Page 3

• "..... work still needs to continue to establish a soundly based method for the identification of DC’s. Identification of DC’s will be informed from an epidemiological investigation of the data from previous outbreaks. Recent scientific publications have begun to make use of the data collected during the 2001 outbreak and forthcoming analysis may further elucidate the effect of culling on the progress of the disease {7.12}.

Page 11

...The Government’s response (HMG2002) accepted that there was a need to research local transmission, and pointed to the extensive epidemiological field data that was available. The response also indicated that good biosecurity was of critical importance and stressed that the use of “Blue Box” restricted infected areas had reduced the local spread of infection. However, it is essential that more quantitative research is undertaken in this area, and checked by the relevant science community through publications and parallel investigations using different analyses. The findings must then be drawn together to inform the decision making processes, including the arrangements for identifying “dangerous contacts”

Page 13

R6.2 Defra should commission research to improve the methodology used to identify dangerous contacts. (p72)