Yeongam County Lifts Movement Restrictions Three Months After Direct Hit from FMD Outbreak

Livestock Market Reopens After Closure Since March
Movement Restrictions Remain for Eight Farms Due to Concerns Over Increased Naturally Infected Antibody Levels

Yeongam Livestock Cooperative Livestock Auction Market view. Provided by Yeongam County

The movement restrictions imposed on Yeongam County, South Jeolla Province, due to the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in March this year have been lifted.

According to Yeongam County on the 16th, the FMD movement restrictions have been fully lifted except for a few local farms. This comes 94 days after the FMD outbreak on March 13.

The livestock market, which had been closed during this period, has also reopened.

The county explained that after an asymptomatic FMD case was detected at a local farm on May 21 and the affected cattle were culled, they conducted tests to lift the movement restrictions. As no further virus was detected, the decision to lift the restrictions was made the previous day.

However, movement restrictions will remain in place for about three weeks for a total of eight farms, including those with increased naturally infected antibody levels.

With the partial lifting of movement restrictions in the quarantine zone of Dopomyeon, Yeongam, the livestock market, which had been closed since March, has reopened. At the market reopening on this day, 348 calves from 138 farms were traded.

Livestock farmers in Yeongam have faced increasing management difficulties as they were unable to ship calves in a timely manner during the closure.

Shin Seungcheol (Democratic Party of Korea, Yeongam 1), a member of the South Jeolla Provincial Council, mentioned the difficulties faced by livestock farmers in Yeongam at the first meeting of the 391st regular session of the Agricultural, Fisheries, and Livestock Food Committee on June 9. He called for measures to minimize damages to farms suffering from prolonged shipping restrictions following the FMD outbreak.

Meanwhile, Yeongam currently has 61,354 cattle being raised on 1,237 farms, and 451 cattle were culled due to this FMD outbreak.