February 25, 2014

South Korea offers assistance to North Korea to contain FMD

In order to contain the first outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in North Korea in about three years, South Korea offered to provide aid to the communist country, a government official said, amid signs of warming ties between the arch rivals.

A discussion to discuss Seoul's humanitarian assistance to the North was also proposed by South Korea, the unification ministry official said.

He said South Korea plans to provide disinfectants and preventive medicine to the North if Pyongyang calls for Seoul's aid during the possible talks.

The move came just days after the North confirmed that the animal disease broke out at a pig farm in a suburb of Pyongyang on January 8, and has since spread to 17 areas of Pyongyang and a county near the North's capital.

The North said since April 2011 it has killed 2,900 pigs and buried about 360 pigs that died from the outbreak of the disease. Due to lack of vaccines, diagnostic means and disinfectants, the disease continues to spread.

The World Organization for Animal Health said the North reported the outbreak more than a month after it broke out, without explaining why.

FMD is an infectious and sometimes fatal one that affects cloven-hoofed animals such as pigs, cattle, deer and sheep.

South Korea's offer comes as a second round of reunions is under way at a North Korean mountain resort for hundreds of South and North Korean families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War.