A new vaccine being developed in the United States could diminish the threat of the deadly foot and mouth disease, which decimated the British livestock herd in 2001.
The US Animal Health Association annual meeting has heard of that vaccination is now a serious option for policy makers dealing with disease outbreaks.
Dr Jose Diez of USDA's Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) said FMD vaccination is "very much in the mix, replacing depopulation of large numbers of animals".
In the past, "ring vaccination" was a control strategy to stop FMD.
That meant animals within a fixed geographic radius of an outbreak would be vaccinated to create a buffer of animals that could not contract and spread the disease.
However, with the older vaccines, those animals later would have been killed because the vaccine would have caused them to test positive for FMD.
At the USAHA meeting, Dr L Rodiquez from USDA's Agricultural Research Service and Dr T Garland from DHS described a new vaccine development that could lead to the breakthrough known as "vaccinate to live".
But new diagnostic tests will be needed if the vaccines are put into use.
National Pork Board science and technology vice president Dr Paul Sundberg expressed enthusiasm for the new vaccine.
He said the new vaccine "looks very promising. ... They've done a lot of work on the diagnostics, the vaccine and the anti-virals. The next step is to get it into production and to get it available."
Dr Sundberg said the vaccinate-to-live regime, which would allow vaccinated animals to be differentiated from diseased animals, would add a much-needed tool to the strategies currently available if, say, an outbreak defied eradication efforts or efforts to localise it through current techniques.
How vaccinate-to-live affects trade and consumer acceptance of meat from vaccinated animals remains an issue.
Burton Eller, National Cattlemen's Beef Association executive director in Washington, D.C., told Feedstuffs that his organisation has yet to make a decision on the advisability of vaccinate-to-live because of potential trade implications.
Former USDA chief veterinarian Dr Alfonso Torres, who is now the associate dean for public policy at Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine, said the World Organisation for Animal Health "has done a lot to minimise the penalty" for countries that want to use vaccines.
He and Dr Richard Breitmeyer, California's state veterinarian, pointed out that the new vaccinate-to-live vaccines, which do not present any food safety issues, could find favour with consumers on the basis of animal welfare, particularly compared to gruesome images that could arise if large numbers of animals had to be depopulated.
"Society does not want to see animals die," Torres said. "I am very excited about the new vaccine."