South Korea confirms new FMD outbreak

The South Korean government on Monday (April 26) confirmed its ninth outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) this month at a pig farm west of Seoul.

The animals at the farm on Ganghwa Island, 60 kilometres from the capital city started showing symptoms late Tuesday, prompting on-site quarantine officials to order the culling and burying of all pigs raised there as a preventative step, the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MFAFF) said.

MFAFF is discouraging movement of people, vehicles and animals near the site of the latest outbreak, hoping to help contain the disease. The farm is located 3.1 kilometres from where the first outbreak was reported on April 8.

FMD affects all cloven-hoofed animals such as cattle, pigs, deer, goats and buffalo and is classified as a "List A" disease by the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health. Countries that report the disease are barred from exporting meat from cloven hoofed animals.

Quarantine officials have also started culling livestock in the immediate vicinity of the latest outbreak to try to control the highly contagious disease. Roadblocks and vehicle decontamination checkpoints have already been set up across the island.

Meanwhile, South Korea has banned imports of all Japanese meat and by-products from cloven-hoofed animals after Japan confirmed an outbreak of FMD.

The Japanese government acknowledged earlier that three cows suspected of being infected with the virus at a farm in Miyazaki Prefecture tested positive for the highly contagious disease. The farm also raises 16 cattle used for breeding.