Scientists are frantically trying to establish yesterday if a new outbreak of foot and mouth disease in Britain is the same virus strain as last month?s cases.Experts scrambled to determine if the two outbreaks are linked or whether the new cases are completely unrelated as officials hoped a series of clampdown measures would prevent the disease from spreading.More animals were to be slaughtered near the site of the outbreak, southwest of London, less than a week after officials declared foot and mouth had been ?eradicated? from the country and lifted restrictions.The new case was discovered close to a farm where an outbreak was first reported last month, triggering an emergency response from the government.Environment Secretary Hilary Benn said officials were working hard to pinpoint the exact strain in order to tailor their response.The BBC said it understood the tests had proved the strain was the same, but a spokesman from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) could not confirm the report when contacted.

Benn told BBC television: ?The puzzling thing is that it is more than 30 days since the last confirmed outbreak and the incubation period of foot and mouth is two to 14 days.We are determined to do everything to contain and ultimately eradicate this outbreak.?

The European Union also reimposed a ban on British meat exports to the bloc?s 26 member states, the European Commission said.