First official case of African swine fever reported in South Korea
- 5 years ago
We begin with South Korea's first confirmed case of African swine fever.
We first got word of this a few hours ago,... and it's making waves, as you would expect.
We have our Kim Jae-hee on the line to give us the details.
So Jae-hee, where and when was the disease detected?
Ji-yoon, at around 6 PM Monday,... five pigs were found dead at a pig farm in Paju, northwest of Seoul near the inter-Korean border,... from what was determined to be high fever.
At about 6:30 AM on Tuesday, a detailed inspection confirmed that it was indeed the swine fever that caused this death.
At a press briefing at 9 AM by South Korea's agriculture ministry, it was announced that a 48-hour lockdown has been imposed on ALL pig farms across the nation as of Tuesday morning.
The measure aims to prevent any animals, workers or farm equipment being moved to other farms or facilities,... an an attempt to try to prevent the spread of the disease.
The ministry added those already en route to other places must find a temporary place to stay throughout the duration of the lockdown period.
The ministry announced it would cull over two thousand four hundred pigs at the farm where the fever was detected, to prevent the virus from spreading. Authorities are also working to discover the cause of the outbreak.
Now, authorities here had been moving heaven and earth to try and prevent the disease from reaching South Korea. What exactly is African swine fever, and how will this outbreak affect our daily lives?
Ji-yoon, as you know, there had been months of quarantine efforts to attempt to stop an outbreak of the highly contagious disease after North Korea revealed its own outbreak of African swine fever four months ago, in late May.
African swine fever is a disease highly fatal to pigs, with a near 100 percent mortality rate.
It's highly contagious in pigs and no vaccine currently exists, but it's important to stress that the disease is harmless to humans.
Pork prices could rise though, as China saw record-high pork prices, with prices increasing by almost 50 percent on-year, after its first case of African swine fever was detected in August.
That is all I have for now, but I'll be back with more updates in our later newscast, Ji-yoon.
We first got word of this a few hours ago,... and it's making waves, as you would expect.
We have our Kim Jae-hee on the line to give us the details.
So Jae-hee, where and when was the disease detected?
Ji-yoon, at around 6 PM Monday,... five pigs were found dead at a pig farm in Paju, northwest of Seoul near the inter-Korean border,... from what was determined to be high fever.
At about 6:30 AM on Tuesday, a detailed inspection confirmed that it was indeed the swine fever that caused this death.
At a press briefing at 9 AM by South Korea's agriculture ministry, it was announced that a 48-hour lockdown has been imposed on ALL pig farms across the nation as of Tuesday morning.
The measure aims to prevent any animals, workers or farm equipment being moved to other farms or facilities,... an an attempt to try to prevent the spread of the disease.
The ministry added those already en route to other places must find a temporary place to stay throughout the duration of the lockdown period.
The ministry announced it would cull over two thousand four hundred pigs at the farm where the fever was detected, to prevent the virus from spreading. Authorities are also working to discover the cause of the outbreak.
Now, authorities here had been moving heaven and earth to try and prevent the disease from reaching South Korea. What exactly is African swine fever, and how will this outbreak affect our daily lives?
Ji-yoon, as you know, there had been months of quarantine efforts to attempt to stop an outbreak of the highly contagious disease after North Korea revealed its own outbreak of African swine fever four months ago, in late May.
African swine fever is a disease highly fatal to pigs, with a near 100 percent mortality rate.
It's highly contagious in pigs and no vaccine currently exists, but it's important to stress that the disease is harmless to humans.
Pork prices could rise though, as China saw record-high pork prices, with prices increasing by almost 50 percent on-year, after its first case of African swine fever was detected in August.
That is all I have for now, but I'll be back with more updates in our later newscast, Ji-yoon.