Incheon City said on the 1st that it culled 243 cattle being raised at a farm in Ganghwa County where foot-and-mouth disease occurred.
To minimize the spread of foot-and-mouth disease, the city is cleaning and disinfecting the farm facilities and carrying out emergency quarantine measures for nearby farms. It is also imposing movement restrictions and conducting clinical tests on about 70 even-toed ungulate farms within a 3-kilometer quarantine zone.
Foot-and-mouth disease is an illness that infects cloven-hoofed animals (even-toed ungulates) such as cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats. It is highly contagious and is one of the class 1 livestock infectious diseases.
Foot-and-mouth disease last occurred in Korea on Apr. 13 last year in Yeongam County, South Jeolla Province, and this is the first case in about nine months. In Incheon, it is the first confirmation in about 11 years since it was found at a pig farm in Ganghwa County in Mar. 2015.
Initially, the city said, based on the farm owner's statement, that it planned to cull 246 cattle, but it ultimately confirmed the target as 243 and carried out the culling.
Earlier, foot-and-mouth disease occurred on the morning of the 31st of last month at a cattle farm in Songhae-myeon, Ganghwa County.
In response, the Central Disaster Management Headquarters for foot-and-mouth disease raised the alert level for Incheon and Gimpo, Gyeonggi Province, from "attention" to "serious," and raised other regions to "caution." It then issued a 48-hour standstill order for even-toed ungulates until 1 a.m. on the 2nd.