Foot-and-mouth Disease Threatens Japan’s Livestock
Foot-and-mouth epidemic is spreading throughout Japan’s Miyazaki Prefecture like a wildfire.
The country’s agricultural authorities have failed to deal promptly with the spread of the highly contagious disease, causing unprecedented damage since WWII to the livestock.
Thousands of heads of cattle are being culled and buried in Miyakonojo, Miyazaki Prefecture (state) in Japan. Image cerdit: AFP. Image may be subject to copyright. See Fire-Earth Fair Use Notice.
More cattle in Miyazaki, Saito and Hyuga that prefectures (states) that were suspected of carrying the disease have now tested positive, local reports say.
As of now about 158,600 animals have been infected, according to the agriculture ministry’s animal health division.
“We’ve reached a critical point, a perilous point,” Japan’s new Prime Minister Naoto Kan said. “I understand that an immediate response is of paramount importance and would like to tackle the problem with a sense of urgency.”
“The latest weekly animal hygiene report of the Ministry of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries introduces cases in which sterilizing work has not been properly carried out after vaccinations have been performed. If that’s true, there may be a connection with the latest infections. There’s a need to provide thorough sterilization once again,” Hiroomi Akashi, a professor of veterinary virology at the University of Tokyo said.
Korea
Foot-and-mouth disease has also persisted in Korea since at least January this year. “The Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MIFAFF) said Tuesday that it found four infected cows in a farm in Cheongyang, South Chungcheong Province. The ministry decided to cull all 54 cows at the farm, which is 6.5 kilometers away from the Livestock and Veterinary Research Institute where infected cases were discovered last month,” a report said.
China
“The foot-and-mouth disease outbreak that originated in Ganghwa County of Incheon might have been spread by a farmer who recently visited China,” a report dated May 18, 2010 said.
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