The software has also been sold to Hong Kong, Vietnam, South Korea, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and Argentina. Morris is about to leave for Vietnam, and later the U.K., to assist with rolling out the software.

The software works out different scenarios based on the information it is given.

'The framework allows you to describe the disease ' how transmissible it is, how fatal it is, how infective it is to different animal types,' says Bryan O'Leary, software development manager at the EpiCentre.

The software allows the user to describe the domain ' for example a list of farms. There are a number of sections for input on how the disease might spread, how efficient a country would be in finding the disease and controlling it, says O'Leary. The software makes calculations based on that data and comes up with a prediction of the future.

InterSpread Plus predicts that the risk of a substantial epidemic in Britain is low, according to Morris.