Seoul (ANTARA News/Yonhap-OANA) - South Korea will spend US$2.61 million in the next four years to help fight foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in Southeast Asian countries, a main source of the disease that affects hoofed animals, including cows and pigs, the government said Monday.

Under a joint prevention program with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the money will help set up disease prevention and control systems in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, according to the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

The move comes after South Korea`s most recent FMD outbreak, reported late last year, was thought to have originated from Southeast Asia, where the disease is rampant.

"The program will also help understand outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease in the Southeast Asian countries and through which channels it travels to the country (South Korea), the ministry said in a press release. "Therefore, it is also expected to help prevent future inflows of the disease in the long-run."

The latest outbreak in South Korea lasted for more than four months, forcing the government to destroy more than 3.4 million cows, pigs and other hoofed animals.

South Korea has not reported any fresh outbreak of the disease since it began vaccinating all pigs and cows earlier in the year.
(U.H-AK)

Editor: Priyambodo RH
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