Taiwan suffers FMD outbreak
Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) has broken out on a Taiwan hog farm, 14 years after an epidemic hit the island, the nation’s Council of Agriculture has reported.
Health workers on the Penghu Islands in the middle of the Taiwan Strait noticed the outbreak Tuesday 22 March 2011 after 30 hogs on a pig farm developed blisters around their months, the council said in a statement.
The council slaughtered 999 hogs on the farm overnight, disinfected surrounding areas and barred the movement of cloven-hoofed animals.
The council also ordered Penghu’s meat markets temporarily closed.
Hsu Tien-lai, director of the council’s animal and plant health inspection and quarantine bureau, said FMD could be caused by hogs shipped to Penghu from Taiwan mainland.
He said that he believed the outbreak would have no effect on Taiwan’s pork exports because its shipments of fresh pork are small.
Taiwan has been on guard against FMD after outbreaks occurred in recent months in Japan, North Korea and South Korea.
FMD last broke out on Taiwan hog farms in March 1997, prompting Taiwan to cull 3.8 million swine.
Taiwan’s current production is 6.4 million head a year, mostly for domestic consumption.
