March 24, 2011

More than 900 pigs have been culled in the offshore county of Taiwan's Penghu after some hogs on the auction block were spotted with blisters on their mouths Tuesday (Mar 22), the Council of Agriculture (COA) said in a statement.

The managers at the meat market immediately slaughtered all 30 pigs that were in the same truck compartment as the first infected animals, and disinfected the market's holding pens and equipment.

The county government then announced a suspension of meat market trade and a ban on the movement of cloven-hoofed animals throughout the county, pending an investigation of the cause of the outbreak.

Initial tests on samples collected from the ailing pigs showed that they were infected with an O-type foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) virus, said Huang Kuo-ching, deputy director of COA's Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine.

Penghu's county government has set up an emergency task force to deal with the FMD outbreak. Its meat market will remain closed until the cause of the FMD outbreak is discovered, Huang said.

Unlike ranches in Taiwan proper, the pigs in Penghu county have not received vaccinations against FMD since 2006, he added.

Since a serious FMD outbreak hit Taiwan in 1997, locally grown pork has been barred from exports. Sporadic FMD outbreaks were reported in some parts of Taiwan last year.