Korea Launches Livestock Health Inspections
SOUTH KOREA - The Korean Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs is carrying out special inspections to prevent the recurrence of foot-and-mouth disease and Avian Influenza.
20 August 2013
2 minute read
The ministry is concerned that fresh outbreaks could result from a lack of epidemic prevention activities at livestock farmhouses during the summer period and the ending of the special animal health control period in June which was needed before the country attained foot-and-mouth disease-free nation status from the Office International des Epizooties (OIE) in 2014.
The ministry said that since foot-and-mouth disease and AI have not recurred over the past two years, livestock farmhouses have tended to pay less attention towards animal health controls and some have not been vaccinating against foot-and-mouth disease in the summer.
To resolve this, intensive inspections will be implemented as a measure to promote attention to animal health control and encourage epidemic prevention activities at livestock farmhouses, the ministry said.
In addition, livestock industry vehicle registration is just 63 per cent, despite the implementation on 1 January, 2013 of the regulation designed to help prevent the spread of animal disease.
MAFRA is to continue its promotional activities until August and conduct a crackdown on violations starting in September, to help increase the number of registrations.
In all 41,000 vehicles out of the 65,000 livestock industry vehicles have been registered.
Central and local government inspection will be implemented separately after vulnerable livestock farmhouses have been selected for intensive inspection and epidemic prevention, including foot-and-mouth disease vaccinations.
Joint inspection will be carried out by MAFRA and the Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency (Central Inspection Office) by18 officials from nine offices.
An autonomous inspection plan will be set up and implemented by the authorities in cities and provinces.
The MAFRA inspections will include comprehensive animal health control conditions such as the implementation of disinfection, the) control of people and vehicle access, thefoot-and-mouth disease vaccination status and the animal health control training for foreign workers.
Breeches of the regulations that are found in the inspections could be subject to heavy fines of up to 5 million Won
TheCattleSite News Desk
