Thursday 03 March 2011
Korea
FMD debacle
Farmers ask if they were guilty or negligent. Maybe some were sloppy with hygiene or their practices, but most were mere victims.
Korea JoongAng Daily (S. Korea), February 16, 2011
Korea JoongAng Daily (S. Korea), February 16, 2011
Wild boars, the customary enemy of livestock farmers, were rare this winter. They, too, were victims of a lethal predator - foot-and-mouth disease, which viciously wiped out cloven-hoofed animals across the nation. Deer, sheep and boars in the wild as well as domestic animals fell helpless to the deadly virus.
Experts say an infected hog can dispel approximately 100 million cells of foot-and-mouth virus a day, and inhaling 100,000 of them can lead to infection. The virus can be blown by winds as far as 300 kilometers (186 miles), and that’s what the ruthless winter winds did this season, permeating the nation.
It was the country’s worst epizootic epidemic in the history of its livestock farming industry.
The history of mankind is the story of battles with bacterial and viral epidemics. Korea’s quarantine system, despite the country’s tech-savviness and economic status, revealed itself to be bizarrely antiquated...
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http://joongangdaily.joins.com/article/view.asp?aid=2932234
Source: joongangdaily.com
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