FMD may spread outside vaccination zones in Japan

 

 

Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) may have spread outside the areas in Miyazaki Prefecture, southwestern Japan, where cattle and pigs were vaccinated after the outbreak of the highly-contagious disease in late April.

 

The agriculture ministry said the same day that suspected FMD cases were reported in the cities of Miyazaki, Hyuga and Saito in the prefecture. The cases were found at a pig farm in Miyazaki, and a cattle farm in Hyuga and another in Saito.

 

Experts from the Miyazaki prefectural government inspected the three farms and confirmed symptoms typical of the disease such as drooling and blisters in animals there.

 

Results of genetic tests will become available on Friday (June 11), but the prefecture decided Thursday to cull all of some 2,200 animals at the livestock farms.

 

If the tests turn out to be positive, the prefectural government will prohibit the movements of livestock in a radius of 10 kilometres from the three farms and set milder restrictions in a radius of 20 kilometres from the facilities.

 

After the FMD outbreak was first confirmed in late April, the agriculture ministry and the prefectural government set up vaccination zones, each with a 10-kilometre radius from affected farms, in highly-infected areas in the eastern part of the prefecture, including the towns of Kawaminami and Tsuno.

 

But the three livestock farms in question are outside the zones. This suggests that the attempt to contain the epidemic may have failed. Vaccination in the containment zones has already been completed.

 

The suspected cases in the three cities were reported only after FMD was confirmed in three cows at a farm in Miyakonojo, another city in Miyazaki Prefecture, Thursday morning.

 

Miyakonojo ranked top among all Japanese municipalities in 2006 in terms of cattle and pig production value. Currently, there are some 70,000 cattle and 400,000 pigs in the city.

 

Miyazaki Governor Hideo Higashikokubaru and Takashi Shinohara, another senior vice agriculture minister who heads the central government's team tackling the disease, met at the Miyazaki prefectural government office and agreed to speed up measures to prevent any further spread of the disease.

 

Meanwhile, the government of neighboring Kagoshima Prefecture, which is just southwest of Miyakonojo, decided Thursday to block roads that lead from Miyakonojo into the prefecture and have no disinfection points.

 

So far, a total of about 270,000 cattle and pigs have been destroyed in Miyazaki Prefecture.