Japan Pig, Cattle Cull to Reach 200,000
JAPAN - The farm ministry on Wednesday announced actions aimed at stemming the spread of foot-and-mouth disease in Miyazaki Prefecture, which calls for vaccinating and then slaughtering all pigs and cattle within a radius of 10 kilometers of the infection-hit area.
20 May 2010
1 minute read
About 200,000 livestock - 155,000 pigs and 50,000 cows - will be culled. The number of animals earmarked for slaughter represents roughly 17 per cent of the prefecture's respective populations of pigs and cows.
All the affected animals will be vaccinated first to slow the spread of infection. Vaccinations will start as early as Thursday and should be completed within a week. The animals will then be destroyed in later weeks.
The program will begin in Kawaminami, where the outbreak is the most severe.
