FOOT-and-mouth is in danger of becoming the forgotten disease. It has slipped down the news agenda, and apparently more pressing problems have presented themselves to the politicians.

However, swathes of the countryside still live in fear - farmers are terrified that it will sweep into the "pig belt" of the Vale of York and East Yorkshire. Currently there are hotspots near Thirsk and Whitby, but the effects are still being felt further afield: yesterday we reported that some footpaths in Teesdale, which were due to reopen this week, are to remain closed because of their proximity to Yorkshire.

The virus now appears more virulent than first anticipated. The warmer summer weather is not killing it off and the mass culls are containing it rather than eradicating it.

As we report today, the real fear is that it will linger until autumn when conditions will allow it to grow stronger again.

When the disease first struck back in February, there was a genuine feeling that the Government had been caught on the hop - that is one of the reasons that the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food was one of the main casualties of the General Election. The Ministry clearly had no cohesive strategy for dealing with an out-break and this was best shown in its attitude towards vaccination. It appeared to believe that vaccination had a part to play in the containment of the disease, but the National Farmers Union was not to be convinced. Then it emerged that even if the NFU had agreed, it would probably have been weeks before enough vaccination were available.

Without wishing time away, autumn is only two months off. Before then, ministers - and farmers - must redouble their efforts to eradicate foot-and-mouth. We hope against hope that they will be successful.

And before then, they must produce a comprehensive strategy for dealing with a flare-up.

As 3.5 million animals have already been culled, and as the people of Tow Law will testify, there will be little public appetite for a renewed slaughter programme. Vaccination will have a major role to play.

This is not simply a country issue. The whole country cannot afford to enter a new year with the disease still rampant and its agriculture and, more financially important, its tourism still ravaged.