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| ▲ Quarantine officials in protective suits enter a beef cattle farm in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, central South Korea, in this file photo taken May 11, 2023, to cull cattle after outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) cases were confirmed there and at two other beef cattle farms in the region. They were the first confirmed FMD cases in the country in more than four years. (Yonhap) |
S Korea-FMD
S. Korea lifts standstill order against foot-and-mouth disease
SEOUL, June 15 (Yonhap) -- South Korea on Thursday lowered the crisis level of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) and lifted a standstill order imposed in central reasons, as it has not seen an additional animal case over the past month, the agriculture ministry said.
Last month, the country confirmed its first FMD case in more than four years in the central city of Cheongju, and reported 10 more cases at beef and goat farms in the city and adjacent regions within about a week.
Accordingly, the government heightened the warning level by two notches from "caution" to "serious," the highest level of its four-tier system, for Cheongju, the county of Jeungpyeong in the same province and seven other adjacent regions, including Daejeon, Sejong and Cheonan, to implement more stringent quarantine steps.
It also shut down related facilities and enforced a standstill order.
But no additional case has been reported since mid-May, and tests on farm animals over the past week indicated a low chance for the disease to spread further, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.
"We've decided to lift a movement restriction order and lowered the warning level to the lowest point of 'attention' based on the results of our clinical tests and environment checks at 384 farms in the regions," the ministry said in a release.
The government also completed administering vaccines to more than 1,000 animals at farms across the country to contain the disease, it added.
As a severe and highly transmissible viral disease, FMD causes illness in cows, pigs, goats and other cloven-hoofed animals. It does not affect humans.
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