South Korea reports foot-and-mouth outbreak

Yahoo News 7 Jan 10;

SEOUL (AFP) – South Korea Thursday confirmed an outbreak of highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease on a cattle farm and ordered a halt to pork and beef exports.

Six of 185 milk cows at a farm in Pocheon, 30 kilometres (18 miles) northeast of Seoul, had tested positive for the virus, the agriculture ministry said in a statement.

Foot-and-mouth disease affects animals with cloven hooves such as cattle, pigs, deer, goats and sheep. The virus can be spread between animals, through the air and on clothing. However, it is rarely transmitted to humans.

"All animals with cloven hooves found within a radius of 500 metres (yards yards) from the affected farm will immediately be culled," the ministry's livestock bureau director Lee Chang-Buhm told journalists.

"Exports of such animals will also be halted" until further notice, he said.

South Korea last year exported some 13,000 tonnes of swine products, mostly intestines, skin and lard.

A total of 346 milk cows, 1,500 pigs, 30 deer and 12 goats were being raised at seven farms within the 500-metre radius, he said.

Movement restrictions were also put in place to help contain the disease within a three-kilometre (two-mile) radius from the contaminated farm, he added.

The disease was reported South Korea in 2000 and 2002, resulting in the slaughter of infected animals at a total cost of about 450 billion won (400 million dollars).