Yacht club controls as French to be disinfected

The spotlight of the Balearic foot-and-mouth controls yesterday switched from visitors from Britain to France. Even French yacht crews are to be subjected to controls, as the Spanish and local authorities step up efforts even further to ensure that the highly contagious disease does not reach the islands. The Balearic Ministry for Agriculture, the very same department whose boss, Minister Mateu Morro catagorically said that there were no cases of mad cow in the Balearics, confirmed yesterday that there are no animals infected by foot-and-mouth in the Balearics. However, in order to make sure the situation remains as such, the local authorities have stepped up controls to include airlines, merchant shipping companies, yacht clubs and marinas and domestic transport companies, on top of the controls already in place at airports and ports. The Spanish Ministry for Agriculture yesterday ordered the same controls to be introduced for France as have now been in place for the past ten days for the United Kingdom.