Beware the Hogs and Marmots
As many schools throughout Korea, including mine, are recovering from a stint of mumps, the last thing people want is to dodge another outbreak of infectious disease. However, South Korea reported its second case of hog foot-and-mouth disease just two months after being declared free of it at the World Organization for Animal Health in Paris. Oh irony, how cruel you are!
The first incident of hog foot-and-mouth disease was discovered on July 24th, the second incident emerging less than a week later. Fear of its spread has temporarily been allayed as the two cases are both localized to pig farms within 70 km (40 mi) of each other in Uiseong County in the North Gyeonsang Province southeast of Seoul. The nightmare of the 2011 outbreak is still a fresh memory, however; the pandemic of foot-and-mouth stretched throughout the peninsula, costing the South Korean government $2.6 billion and resulting in the removal of 3.5 million livestock.
In January, North Korea also experienced an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, with over 10,000 animals infected and over 1,000 dying. An unwillingness to cull affected animals, due in part to the scarcity of meat and the need for work animals, created a crisis that spurred South Korea to donate vaccines and medical equipment.
Pigs infected with foot-and-mouth in Pyongyang were affected by the Type-O virus, the same strain now affecting South Korea now. In efforts to quell fear, Agriculture Ministry officials are stressing that all cases of the disease are Type-O, for which a majority of the population has been vaccinated.
Officials Quarantine City in China to Contain Bubonic Plague
30,000 residents of Yumen, China were barred from leaving the city, and at least 151 people quarantined, after a man died of the bubonic plague in late July. The 38-year-old man developed a high fever after feeding his dog a dead marmot he had found earlier in the day. People living in the northwestern province of Gansu were confined with “enough rice, flour and oil to supply all its residents for up to one month,” according to Chinese spokespeople. Roadblocks were also erected to prevent travel to and through the city.
In September 2012, another villager found a dead marmot in the Sichuan province of China, and shared the meal with friends; he also died of the disease. The plague, historically responsible for hundreds of millions of deaths, is a Tier 1 select agent, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. With a population such as China’s, the most stringent precautions were naturally taken, and thus far, no other cases have been reported.