By Kang Seung-woo
Korea has decided to give up its “vaccine-free” status by inoculating all pigs and cattle in its effort to fight a raging foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) epidemic.
President Lee Myung-bak has ordered the domestic production of vaccines, large quantities of which will be needed for regular inoculations even after the current crisis ends.
“It was the President’s order to find ways of self-producing vaccines,” Yoo Jeong-bok, minister of food, agriculture, forestry and fisheries, recently told a group of editors.
Asked whether Lee made his decision on the basis of experts’ opinion, Yoo didn’t answer clearly, adding that he expected a feasibility test would be conducted to determine whether Lee’s order to locally develop and produce the vaccines would be implemented.
Instead of relying on inoculations, the nation depended on the mass culling of livestock to prevent a further spread of the highly-contagious disease but after finding quarantine efforts ineffective, vaccine-dependent methods have gained momentum.
The policy switch came as President Lee called for domestic production of FMD vaccines on Jan. 24.
“For now, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands are the only countries manufacturing internationally approved vaccines. But the government will actively review the possibility of producing vaccines in Korea,” Lee said in his biweekly radio address.
“By carrying out vaccinations, we will be able to prevent this kind of serious damage from reoccurring.” But experts say that once the vaccine-free status is given up, there is no going back. All livestock are inoculated for an extended period of time when the crisis ends, possibly making the vaccines a built-in cost of rearing pigs and cattle.
Giving up the vaccine-free status has been looming for some time.
“In the future, the government will try to minimize the number of culled animals to zero by putting vaccines to work,” the President said during his visit to Hoengseong County, Gangwon Province — one of the nation’s leading premium beef producers.
Experts who support Lee’s initiative argue that, although Korea will be stripped of its status, the loss will not have a big impact on the domestic livestock industry.
Lee Won-bok, head of the Korea Animal Protection Society, said, “If the latest outbreaks were dealt with without the use of vaccines, the request for FMD-free status could be made in three months, but it takes three more months with the use of vaccines.”
Since Jan. 12, the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries has adopted updated quarantine rules to limit the mass slaughter of livestock as most animals have been inoculated.
“Under the new rules, only infected animals and newborn calves that have not developed FMD antibodies are to be destroyed,” Deputy Minister Lee Sang-kil was quoted as saying. “Those that show no symptoms will not be culled although they will be subject to detailed tests and barred from leaving the farm.”