Thousands of mice are being used at the Greek Ministry of Agriculture's Foot and Mouth Disease Research Laboratory in Athens, where a vaccine is extracted from the brain of these little animals, in order to combat epizootia - the African horse sickness which is rampant in Asia and the Middle East, and has now spread to Cyprus.

Research at the Athens laboratory is under Dr Nicholas Tsortsakis, a specialist in the disease, who hopes to be able to mass produce the epizootia vaccine and to prevent a serious outbreak in Europe.