How the Gazette and Echo reported on the foot and mouth outbreak in Essex MENTION foot-and-mouth disease and most people will have some recollection of the epidemic which swept the UK 20 years ago. They might not remember the exact date or how the disease took hold, but they will recall the slaughter of tens of thousands of animals. They will remember the plight of farmers watching their livelihoods literally going up in smoke and, somewhere in the back of their minds, a memory that the first “confirmation” was at an abbatoir in Essex. The first case of the disease to be detected was at Cheale Meats abattoir in Little Warley on February 19 2001 on pigs from Buckinghamshire and the Isle of Wight.