April 8, 2011
 

South Korean livestock markets to resume business

After being closed for four months since last November because of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD), South Korea will finally reopen all 85 of its livestock markets today (Apr 8), according to the media.

The markets remain shuttered even though no new case of the highly contagious animal disease has been reported since February 23.

The Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MIFAFF) said the markets have undergone thorough decontamination in preparation for their reopening, with inspectors having completed checks to see if markets have followed strict sanitation guidelines. MIFAFF said that even after markets start to handle livestock, every effort will be made to decontaminate animals, vehicles and people entering such facilities.

Related to the reopening of the markets, Seoul said it should be able to lift animal movement restrictions on all farms starting Monday (Apr 11) if there are no additional outbreaks. Authorities may also move to lower the current FMD alert level from orange to yellow; that would be the second-lowest readiness posture in the country's four-tiered system. Experts, however, said that as the country had used vaccines to tame the latest outbreak, there is a chance that new cases may be reported among young or weak animals in the coming months.

The government has culled a record 3.47 million head of pigs, cattle, goats and deer at a cost of around KRW3 trillion (US$2.75 billion), following the outbreak, the most severe in the country's history.