Foot & Mouth
3000 animals killed in North Korea to prevent the spread of Foot & Mouth. A disease that is a symtom of modern farming techniques. Ultimately these animals would have been killed anway, but it makes the news when it’s disease and not sandwiches.
[Animal Aid article about the recent pasts' UK F&M outbreak where 6 million animals were slaughtered.]
Hundreds of cows and pigs in North Korea have been slaughtered after an outbreak of foot and mouth disease, according to the World Organisation for Animal Health, a news report has revealed.
The outbreak originally occurred in January at a farm in the capital, Pyongyang, sickening 431 cows, according to a North Korean government report that was posted on the Web site of the Paris-based animal health agency, known by the initials OIE.
According to the report, since the outbreak, quarantine officials have killed 466 cows, including the sickened ones, as well as 2,630 pigs to prevent the spread of the disease, the North’s Agricultural Ministry said.
Some 100,000 animals within the 44-mile radius of the outbreak site will be vaccinated, it added.
The sickened cows were imported from Tieling, China, the report said.
South America takes action over FMD
Foot and mouth disease ‘multination sanitary missions’ will take action in the second half of March along the common borders of Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil and Bolivia, where foot and mouth disease is endemic Uruguayan authorities revealed.
An on-line news report from Merco Press, stated that Francisco Muzio, head of Livestock Services at the Uruguayan Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, said the border area in the heart of South America had seen a repeat of the same foot-and-mouth virus strain over the past decade.
Muzio said in the report: “The Agriculture Council of the south, made up of Mercosur member countries, is meeting this week in Santa Cruz, Bolivia to address the issue and decide on definitive measures.
“All the region’s agriculture ministers and heads of animal health departments will be present”.
The report said in December last year a special sanitary mission from FAO’s Animal Health World Organisation (IEO) visited the region and came up with several proposals to combat foot-and-mouth disease in the common border of Paraguay with Matto Grosso do Sul in Brazil and the triple border area in Chaco, shared by Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay.
A high risk area under surveillance includes a 15km wide strip of land along the shared borders in the four countries and “represents a significant step to ensure effective controls and a timetable of goals to build on”.
“Mercosur Free of Foot and Mouth programme is funding the initiative which, with the help from veterinarians from all countries involved, should enable a strict monitoring of a common border area in countries with a high risk of viral circulation and structurally weak sanitary programs”, Muzio said in the report.
