S. Korea reports fresh foot-and-mouth case
South Korea said Thursday it had confirmed a fresh case of foot-and-mouth disease in a pig farm, nearly four months after the last case was reported.
The agriculture ministry said the farm is located in Jincheon some 90 kilometres (81 miles) south of Seoul.
It was the fourth case this year, but the ministry said any spread of the highly contagious disease was unlikely, as it involved a strain which South Korea vaccinates widely against.
The farm with nearly 16,000 pigs has been effectively quarantined, the ministry added.
Two separate cases had been detected in July, only two months after South Korea was declared free of the disease at a meeting of the World Organisation for Animal Health in Paris.
A third case was confirmed in August.
In 2011 a devastating outbreak hit the entire Korean peninsula and resulted in the culling of nearly 3.5 million cattle, pigs and other animals in South Korea alone.
The Seoul government estimated the cost of that outbreak at $2.6 billion.
Foot-and-mouth disease affects cloven-hoofed animals such as cattle, pigs, deer, goats and sheep.
© 2014 AFP
