Outbreaks of foot & mouth disease normally leads to culling of large number of livestock, but it may soon be a thing of the past as scientists have discovered that cattle infected with the disease are only contagious for a brief period of time.

A fresh study has established that cattle are infectious only for around a two-day period and there is a "window of opportunity" between the time when an animal becomes infected with the virus and the time when it transmits the virus to other animals.

It means that it is possible to identify the infected cattle and eliminate them from other animals in the herd before they can pass on the virus.

Explaining the study, Prof Mark Woolhouse of Edinburgh University said, "We now know that there is a window where, if affected cattle are detected and removed from the herd promptly, there may be no need for pre-emptive culling in the immediate area of an infected farm."

Prof Woolhouse added that they had an opportunity now to develop new tests to detect and remove infected animals earlier.

In 2001, the UK suffered a devastating epidemic that led to culling on as many as 10 million farm animals, despite the fact that only a few of those animals were infected with the disease.