President urges all necessary measures to prevent spread of FMD

SEOUL, Jan. 7 (Yonhap) -- President Lee Myung-bak has ordered the government to take all necessary measures to prevent the spread of the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in the country, his aides said Thursday.

A spokesperson at the presidential office said the agriculture minister briefed
Lee, who stressed the need for stringent quarantine and decontamination to limit
the repercussions of the outbreak.
"Lee also called on officials to make certain that unfounded health concerns do
not hurt local meat consumption," the official said.
South Korea confirmed earlier in the day that it detected the first outbreak of
FMD in eight years at a dairy farm north of Seoul.
FMD is highly contagious and affects cloven-hoofed animals such as cattle, hogs,
deer, goats and sheep. The disease causes blisters on the feet and mouth of
livestock and can lead to death in some animals.
The farm ministry said it has banned the movement of animals, started wide-scale
decontamination measures and started to cull and bury all animals near the dairy
farm.
Experts said that while the disease can spread rapidly among animals, it poses no
health risks for humans since the FMD virus is rarely transmitted to humans and
can be killed easily by heat.
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