Cloaked in trademark red shawls with layers of brightly colored beads around their necks, hundreds of Maasai herders converge on this dusty town on the southern end of Kenya's portion of the Great Rift Valley for the twice-weekly cattle market.

Cows are central to the lives of the nomadic herdsmen who have been deeply disturbed by news that hundreds of thousands of livestock have been killed in faraway Britain in a bid to stamp out an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.

Tribal tradition holds that these herders are the true custodians of all the world's cows, and the notion of a mass slaughter of otherwise healthy animals is not only horrifying in theory -- they take it very personally.

"If the European people were here in Africa, we could have raided them for this," Nicholas Tanyai said angrily, as he looked over cows for sale at the corral on the edge of town, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northwest of the capital, Nairobi.

"Just bring those animals that you are killing, and we will buy them."

Foot-and-mouth is endemic in Kenya, as in many other countries in Africa, the Middle East, Asia and South America, where an outbreak barely causes a stir. A relatively mild livestock disease which strikes cloven-hoofed animals such as sheep, pigs and cows, foot-and-mouth poses no medical threat to humans.

The Maasai equate it with a human cold -- they use the same word for both illnesses -- treating the sores that appear on the hooves and in the mouths of infected animals with boiled herbs and salt and waiting for the disease to pass.

While the virus can significantly reduce the milk and meat output of selectively bred European cattle, its effects on indigenous breeds are minimal apart from in the very young, which can die, said Brian Perry, a veterinary epidemiologist at the Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute.

Kenyan cows are lower-yielding to begin with, and they have also developed greater resistance to the disease, he said.

The panic that has gripped Britain and other Western countries has more to do with international trade than the nature of the disease.

A country that imports livestock touched by the highly infectious virus risks infecting its own herds, thereby jeopardizing its own export business.

British meat and livestock were banned by the European Union, the United States, Canada and other countries after the outbreak was detected February 19.

The virus can be spread by anything it touches, including truck tires, the soles of shoes, or contaminated hay, water and manure. Wind can carry it up to 40 miles (65 kilometers).

Following on the heels of a mad cow disease scare - a livestock ailment that has been linked to a brain-wasting variant in humans - British officials were quick to impose movement restrictions and a slaughter program. More than 200,000 animals have been killed, their carcasses burned, and the ashes buried in deep pits. Many more could be condemned.

Movement by people in the countryside has also been discouraged, with officials closing country footpaths, halting horse racing, quarantining suspect farms and slaughterhouses and shutting down parks and nature reserves.

In the scrubby grasslands around Susua, where zebra and the occasional giraffe mix with the grazing cows, sheep and goats, Nanna Kakatleya's eyes widen in horror at the prospect.

"If the government tells me to kill my cattle, then they will kill me," said the elderly herder, a member of Kenya's majority Kikuyu tribe, who was armed with clubs and arrows as he watched over his animals.

Cows are at the heart of the herder society, representing food, wealth, status, and a source of cash for school fees or the price of a bride.

Slaughter to stave off an outbreak of the disease isn't an option in a country where the government does not have the money to compensate farmers for the loss of their herds. And it wouldn't be effective anyway unless wild animals such as the migrating wildebeest were also culled, Perry said.

When outbreaks do occur in Kenya, the authorities usually impose a quarantine and vaccinate animals in the affected area.

In Europe, however, the injections have been discontinued because they are not 100 percent reliable and can hinder tracking of the disease, as vaccinated animals carry the same antibodies as those infected. (NOTE: With the new vaccines and diagnostic tests this is no longer true.)

An immunization campaign would also cost European countries - apart from Britain and France, which has also now been touched by the disease -- their current foot-and-mouth-free status in world trade markets. (NOTE: Perhaps it's time for the whole world to take a good look at vaccination and avoid ALL future outbreak danger - natural or bio-terrorist in nature.)

That is not a concern in Kenya, where most of the meat and dairy production is for domestic consumption.

Delamere Estates, one of the country's largest beef and dairy producers which operates like western cattle ranches, vaccinates its imported black and white milking cows every four months as a precaution, general manager Renaldo Retief said. (NOTE: Look how simple it becomes.)

He admitted to being as puzzled about Britain's handling of the outbreak as the herders in nearby Susua, where Moses Kaleki contemplated the issue from a bench in front of the town's rickety cafe.

"Maybe the disease is dangerous to you Europeans," he wondered. "Is that why you are killing your cows?" (NOTE: Moses Kaleki has asked the right question. But no, the disease is not dangerous to us. The "modern world" is killing their cattle, sheep, goats, camelids, pigs, herding dogs and more so that a *few* can line their pockets with a few more pennies per pound.)

Dr Richard Lawson, the Green Party's Foot and Mouth Disease Campaign Co-ordinator, has received 20 testing kits from Genesis Diagnostics, a British firm sited in Littleport, Cambridgeshire, and is making them available to animal owners who wish to demonstrate that their animals are not infected by Foot & Mouth Disease (FMD).

The tests can be carried out on site and are similar in shape to pregnancy testing kits that can be bought at chemists. They require a blood sample from the animal, and can give a result in 10 minutes. The Institute of Animal Health at Pirbright is currently evaluating the tests, but they may take weeks to finish their evaluation, and even then may reject the tests. Dr Lawson, a General Practitioner, comments "Time is pressing, and every day animals are being slaughtered unnecessarily. Only 25% of animals suspected of FMD infection are proved to infected by posthumous tests. MAFF's policy seems to be shoot first, ask questions afterwards."

Use of the tests will require the co-operation of a sympathetic vet, veterinary nurse, doctor, practice nurse or phlebotomist. Each test costs £6 to £7.

The Green Party is also awaiting a shipment of 192 tests from UBI Pharmaceuticals in New York State, USA, free of charge, with a generous offer of 10,000 free tests if required. These tests require processing in a laboratory, and the Green Party anticipates that MAFF would try to block such a move.

Dr Lawson, who is the author of a book on public health, comments, "I sincerely hope that Tony Blair is right in his assessment that the disease is over, but the problems caused by his slaughter-only policy are still with us. On Monday 30th of April, Mr Mick Price of Micheldean who suffered a heart attack as a result of MAFF pressure, who had put his few animals on an A notice. This was downgraded to a D notice following his illness. There are many other smallholders who are resisting the mass slaughter of healthy animals who would wish to choose vaccination rather than slaughter of their animals. Rare breeds, particularly the historic Chillingham herd, remain at risk." {The Chillingham Wild Cattle are one of the original herds of emparked wild cattle and still roam in their natural surroundings over about 300 acres of Chillingham Park in Northumberland. They are under threat of culling by MAFF. Please telephone MAFF's local office (24 hours) and make strong objections to the potential destruction of this valuable herd. Telephone 01228 5234000 now, day or night.}

"Nick Brown has refused to impose vaccination against the farmers' wishes. It is illogical to impose slaughter, which is far more traumatic, and causes severe environmental and public health risks, against the wishes of the owners of these animals. They are not intended for the public food chain, so the spurious health scare cooked up by MAFF/NFU does not apply. Animals in this class need special protection. Diagnostic testing kits offers the first line of moral and practical defence: they should also be given the effective defence offered by vaccination."

The test is being developed by our daughter company Bommelli AG in Switzerland in collaboration with the Institute of Animal Health in Pirbright (U.K.) and the Instituto Zooprofilattico in Brescia (Italy). We expect to bring the test to the market as a ready-to-use ELISA kit from September 2001 onwards. The exact level of sensitivity and specificity of the test can only be determined after all necessary experiments have been concluded, but we hope to reach levels close to 100%.

The test makes it possible to identify infected animals in a population where routine vaccination is used to prevent the clinical symptoms and spread of the disease. In this way, the simultaneous use of vaccination and serological monitoring enables eradication programmes to be carried out in infected areas.

Under a non-vaccination policy like in the EU, the test will be of value as a screening tool to identify animals that have been in contact with FMD virus. Positive test samples should then be confirmed by virus isolation techniques to identify virus carriers.