MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

FAO Urges Heightened International Surveillance Against Foot and Mouth Disease

Japan and South Korea have been forced to destroy several thousand animals

FAO urged heightened international surveillance against foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) following three recent incursions in Japan and South Korea.

“We are worried because the rigorous bio-security measures in place in the two countries were overwhelmed, pointing to a recent, large-scale weight of infection in source areas, very probably in the Far East,” said Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Chief Veterinary Officer Juan Lubroth.

“In the past nine years, incursions into officially foot-and-mouth disease (FMD)-free countries, as were Japan and the Republic of Korea, have been extremely rare so to have three such events in four months is a serious cause for concern,” he noted. “We also have to ask ourselves if we aren’t facing a possible replay of the disastrous 2001 FMD transcontinental epidemic which spread to South Africa, the United Kingdom and Europe after earlier incursions in Japan and South Korea,” Lubroth added.

The 2001 foot-and-mouth disease outbreak caused more than 12 billion US dollars of losses to agriculture, livestock trade and tourism in the UK alone. More than six million British sheep and cattle were estimated to have been slaughtered in order to prevent further spread of the disease.

In April, Japan veterinary authorities confirmed an outbreak of type “O” FMD virus, currently more common in Asian countries where FMD is endemic. The Republic of Korea was hit by the rarer type “A” FMD in January and then suffered type “O” infection in April.

So far Japan has had to slaughter 385 animals—buffaloes, cattle and pigs—in its initial response to the outbreak and the Republic of Korea has destroyed more than 3.500 animals—mostly pigs—in responding to its outbreaks. “Even one small outbreak in a previously FMD-free country can cause millions of dollars of losses as global markets close and disease control measures are enforced,” Lubroth said.

The routes taken by the virus have not been identified, but experts say it is possible the infection occurred through food waste, with pigs eating infected meat scraps. Understanding how bio-security breaches occurred is important to prevent similar events elsewhere.

“Under the circumstances we consider that all countries are at risk and a review of preventive measures and response capacity would be welcome,” Lubroth said.