Aju Business Daily

SEOUL -- South Korean quarantine officials culled animals at a dairy cattle farm hit by an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) and locked down nearby farms to stop the highly contagious disease from spreading to other regions.

The agriculture ministry said that cows at a farm in Anseong, some 60 kilometers (36 miles) south of Seoul, tested positive on Monday for the highly contagious disease affecting cloven-hoofed animals. It was the first FMD outbreak in nine months. The previous outbreak was reported on April 1 last year at a pig farm near Seoul.

All 120 heads of cattle at the Anseong farm were culled overnight, the ministry said, adding it would consider destroying some 500 animals at eight nearby farms. A lockdown was placed on 83 farms within a radius of three kilometers, affecting about 4,300 pigs and cows, and preventive measures such as sterilization are being taken in broad areas.

Vice agriculture minister Kim Hyun-soo said the government could contain the spread of the animal disease as almost all pigs and cows have been vaccinated. "I think that the vaccination of cloven-hoofed animals has been done almost 100 percent. Even if vaccination is complete, immunity may be deteriorated depending on individual characteristics."