South Korea on Tuesday confirmed an outbreak of a foot-and-mouth disease with a rare A-type virus at a pig farm in Gimpo, Gyeonggi Province, leading the government to slaughter more than 900 pigs at the farm to prevent nationwide spread.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said on Tuesday that it has confirmed a case of foot-and-mouth disease at a pig farm in Daegot-myeon, Gimpo, after conducting an in-depth analysis on the farm with a pig that showed suspected symptoms. The analysis showed the pig was infected with a rare A-type virus, which is one of the seven foot-and-mouth disease virus types. It is the first time for Korea to confirm an A-type foot-and-mouth disease virus at a pig farm. The non-common virus had infected only a cow farm on two occasions in the past, with the rest being hit by the more common O-type virus.

The latest outbreak of a swine foot-and-mouth disease with the rare virus type has put public health authorities on alert. The government has raised the country’s foot-and-mouth disease alert to the highest level and suspended movement of all farms in the country that breed cloven-footed animals and related facilities for 48 hours until Thursday noon. It also slaughtered 917 pigs from the Gyeonggi farm hit by the outbreak and plans to cull others at farms located 3 kilometers from the affected area. The government also carried out emergency vaccination on all pig farms in Gyeonggi and nearby South Chungcheong Province.

The infectious foot-and-mouth disease, meanwhile, affects cloven-footed animals that have split hoofs as in a cattle, pig, sheep, and goat. Of the total 87 A-type foot-and-mouth disease cases that took place from 2010 to 2016 globally, only three pigs in China were infected with the rare A-type.

By Lee Yu-sup and Lee Eun-joo

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