The last two years have been among the worst on record with more than 60 countries experiencing outbreaks, including many which have not had one in generations.
They included Israel, Greece, Japan, Brazil and Uruguay, all of which were previously declared free of the disease by the World Organisation of Animal Health office, representing 155 countries. "Vaccine makers could barely keep up with demand, so bad was the situation," said Alf-Eckbert Fussel of the commission's health directorate. "New virulent types of the disease, similar to the one found in Britain, were introduced to some countries which were previously free. They were not because of legal trading but probably because of smuggling and illegal trade".
Countries are increasingly blaming their neighbours. One serious outbreak last year in Japan, the first in more than 70 years, was traced back to diseased straw brought illegally from China, via Russia.
"A series of outbreaks in southern Brazil last year led to a serious outbreak in Uruguay, its first in 10 years. More than 30,000 animals had to be slaughtered," said Dr Alex Donaldson, head of the UN's world reference laboratory (WRL) for foot and mouth disease at Pirbright, which collates information on the global spread of the disease.
Diseased pigswill, sometimes illegally imported, is increasingly thought to be a cause of outbreaks, according to the WRL.
This is particularly common in Asia, said Dr Donaldson. An outbreak in South Africa last year was traced to the off-loading of rubbish from a ship in Durban. The Uruguay incident was traced to waste food fed to pigs. The 1981 outbreak in Britain was traced to pigs from Brittany, France.
Ben Gill, president of the National Farmers Union, yesterday suggested that globalisation of trade might be responsible for the British outbreak. "Is it a coincidence that we had classical swine fever in east Anglia last year of an Asian origin, and foot and mouth now, also of an Asian origin? It raises questions about freer world trade."
Talk about it
What do you think?
The countryside in crisis