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Korea beefs up disinfection against foot and mouth

SEOUL: South Korea said on Monday that it would take stronger disinfection measures against outbreaks of the potentially fatal foot-and-mouth disease that has struck some cattle in its western coastal areas.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry has reported one more outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, bringing the tally to a total of 15 affected farms.

Ministry Officials said the highly contagious disease, which can strike cattle, pigs and other animals with split hoofs, was so far limited to the northwest corner of the country and along the western coast.

"We are considering destroying more animals in the infected areas as a stronger measure for disinfection," a ministry official said.

Korean authorities have destroyed animals at farms within a 500 metre (about 0.3 miles) radius from the outbreaks but officials said they might expand that to two km (1.2 miles).

"We are now investigating two more suspected cases of foot and mouth out of 62 farms that reported suspected outbreaks," the ministry official said.

The latest confirmed incident of the disease was found in Hongsong, about 110 km (68 miles) south of Seoul, where nine other outbreaks were reported earlier this month.

In total, Korean authorities had destroyed 1,330 livestock, mostly cattle, at 95 farms as of Sunday in order to contain the disease, ministry officials said.

Authorities in Korea and Japan are both investigating the cause of outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease they first reported on March 27.

Their inoculation and quarantine efforts are aimed at preventing an epidemic like that which hit Taiwan in 1997, which forced the slaughter of a quarter of the island's 14 million pigs and decimated its pork export industry.

Korean pig farmers are facing a de facto ban that is paralysing what they hoped would be a $400 million export industry this year, although the country's disease outbreaks has been only limited to cattle so far.-Reuters