MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Japan extends culling of animals because of ‘explosive’ spread of FMD outbreak

Thousands of cows and pigs have been put down and thousands more will follow

The Japanese government has decided to put down all cows and pigs at livestock farms within 10 kilometres from the heart of the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in Miyazaki Prefecture, according to official sources.

Apparently the explosive spread and contagion of the FMD outbreak has surprised Japanese authorities.

Faced with this situation the government has plans to purchase all the animals at farms within a 10- to 20-kilometer radius. The measures will be made effective as soon as approval from local governments and affected farmers has been obtained.

The Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry and the Miyazaki Prefecture government have been culling cows and pigs at livestock farms where the animals contracted the disease, and are banning the transportation of all livestock at farms within a 10-kilometer radius.

However the Japanese government has decided to expand measures because it is becoming increasingly difficult to stop the disease's explosive outbreak by simply banning the transportation of livestock. Under new rules, animals at farms where no FMD outbreak has been confirmed will also be culled.

As of Tuesday an estimated 118,000 cows and pigs at 131 farms from different counties of the prefecture have been culled and under the new rules an additional 200,000 will be put down.
At farms where no animals have been found to be infected, livestock will be vaccinated against the disease to delay the infection. Animals will be destroyed once authorities have secured land to bury their carcasses, said Japanese officials.

Animals at farms within a 10- to 20-kilometer radius from the outbreak centre will be processed into meat, which will be purchased by the central government.