hankyoreh

A worker at Chuncheon Livestock Market in Chuncheon

Different strains of the virus causing foot-and-mouth disease have appeared simultaneously in South Korea for the first time. With a disease confirmed at a fourth farm, the government has elevated its crisis warning system to “severe,” the highest level.

According to sources from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs on Feb. 9, the strain of the virus found at the dairy farm in Yeoncheon County, Gyeonggi Province, is the A-type. There are seven strains of the foot-and-mouth virus: O, A, Asia1, C, SAT1, SAT2 and SAT3. There have been eight outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease in South Korea since 2000, but the A-type virus was only found in an outbreak of six cases at cattle farms in Pocheon and Yeoncheon, Gyeonggi Province, in Jan. 2010. The other seven outbreaks all involved the O-type strain.

The problem is that it’s unclear whether the foot-and-mouth disease vaccine that the government currently possesses will stop the A-type virus in this outbreak. With the virus spreading around the country, vaccination is the most important form of disease control. Livestock at farms have been inoculated with an O+A vaccine that is supposed to be effective against both strands of the virus. But even with the A-type vaccine, its efficacy varies with the specific genotype of the virus.

“It will probably take a couple more days to determine if our current vaccine is effective,” said a source at the Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Rural Affairs. Since supplies of the O+A vaccine were inadequate to inoculate the entire livestock population, the government has been using the O-type vaccine in a total vaccination program that began on Feb. 8. It will take at least a week to import more of the O+A vaccine.

There has also been a fourth case of foot-and-mouth disease. After a suspicious report was made from a beef farm located just 1.3 km from the dairy farm where the first case of foot-and-mouth disease occurred, a simple test came back positive. The farm is raising 151 beef cattle.

During a meeting of the cattle disease control board on Feb. 10, the Agriculture Ministry raised its crisis warning system to “severe”, the first time to do so since 2010, during the most deadly outbreak of the disease. 86 livestock markets around the country were temporarily closed on Feb. 9 and will remain so until Feb. 18. Movement between farms with living cattle is also prohibited during this period.

By Kim So-youn, staff reporter

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