Merial acknowledge the interim report issued by the HSE today.
UK - Merial fully support the investigation and will continue to co-operate and provide complete access to our centre to enable these investigations to continue.We share the views that the risk of airborne transmission is negligible however, we do have a point of clarification to make regarding the references made to the role water may have played in this outbreak. There is a suggestion that waste water released to the environment by Merial may have been a possible cause of the outbreak. We wish to clarify that Merial does not release water from the shared Pirbright site. We ensure that the water we use in our virus production is treated, we then transfer it to the IAH who treat it further and release it.
Everyone involved in this investigation understands that this report is part of an ongoing process and that the outbreak is causing farmers hardship. We are committed to playing our role in establishing the cause and, like everyone else, want to ensure that lessons are learned, that measures are taken to control, contain and eradicate this outbreak as quickly as possible and, that future outbreaks are prevented.
Merial Statement