More than a million animals could have been saved from slaughter during the foot and mouth epidemic, according to new research to be published today.

Reports, published in the scientific journals Nature and Science, claim that if MAFF, now DEFRA, had been quicker in slaughtering infected animals on contiguous farms, the outbreak could have been halved in scale and the virus might have been extinguished before the summer.

The reports also stated that the army should have been called in earlier to give logistical support to quicken the slaughter.