Korea Slaughtered 120,000 Hogs
SEOUL - May 22/02 - SNS -- The foot and mouth disease outbreak in South Korea has so far resulted in the slaughter and burial of 120,000 pigs, according to estimates prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry.
Most of the animals were located within a 10 kilometer radius of the first outbreak, while another 16,000 pigs at another location have also been destroyed.
Efforts to get the situation under control are made more urgent by widening import bans on South Korean origin livestock and the upcoming World Cup soccer tournament.
China has now imposed an import ban on cloven-hoofed animals and their products from South Korea. The animals and products which have already arrived in China's ports are expected to be returned or destroyed by burning. This follows similar moves in Japan.
Korean Agriculture Minister Kim Dong-tae said the livestock cull, involving mostly pigs, has contained the outbreak to three districts. Foot-and-mouth spreads among cloven-hoofed animals such as cows and pigs, but is not dangerous to humans. Infected animals suffer blisters on their hooves and mouths that spread to internal organs, killing the livestock.
As part of the country's control measures, soldiers and health officials have been fumigating farms and vehicles entering and leaving the affected areas. At the same time, two-thirds of the country's 106 livestock markets have been closed.
The disease is also casting a long shadow of the World Cup Soccer tournament being jointly hosted by Korea and Japan. Many counties fear the disease will be brought back home on footwear and items bought by fans attending the May 31 to June 30 event.
European governments have warned fans travelling to South Korea to leave all food behind when they return home, to prevent bringing the disease back. Other than that, no specific measures have been implemented by the Britain, which suffered a serious foot and mouth outbreak last year.
The nearest World Cup venue to the outbreak is the city of Suwon, which is 12 miles west of infected farms and just outside a controlled zone where movement of people and livestock has been restricted.
"Every day we are disinfecting all 121 farms on the outskirts of the city to prevent the disease from entering," a Suwon official told Cho Mee-young, a reporter for the Edinburgh-based Scotsman newspaper. The city, 18 miles south of Seoul, has no plan to lay disinfectant-soaked mats around its stadium to kill germs on visitors' shoes.
The foot and mouth cases are clustered in three towns, Yong-In and Ansong in the Kyonggi province and Chinchon in the Chung Chong province. The affected districts are 20 to 56 miles south of Seoul.
Only active subscribers can read all of this article.
If you are a subscriber, please log into the website.
If you are not a subscriber, click here to subscribe to this edition of the STAT website and to learn more about becoming a subscriber.
