Foot and mouth disease has broken out in South Korea, four weeks before football’s World Cup is due to begin there. Korean officials are feverishly trying to stamp out the disease, especially as one of the venues for the tournament – Daejeon – is in the path of the outbreak.
With twelve national teams and several hundred thousand supporters due to converge on Korea at the end of May, there are fears that some could carry the virus back home, or to FMD-free Japan, which is co-hosting the tournament.
David Paton, at the UK’s Institute for Animal Health at Pirbright says: “I would advise people to avoid contact with farm animals in Korea, and when they return home. And they shouldn’t bring any animal products back with them.”
The 2001 outbreak of FMD in the UK led to the slaughter of millions of animals. Numerous sporting events were cancelled to try to halt the spread of the disease. But Andreas Herren, spokesman for the world football association FIFA, says those were mostly sports that involved animals, such as horse racing. “The World Cup will go ahead as planned,” he told Â鶹´«Ã½.
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Blowing in the wind
The first FMD outbreak was in early May, at Anseong, 100 kilometres south of the capital, Seoul. All 8420 pigs on the farm were destroyed and movements of animals and vehicles for 20 km around were limited.
However, unlike in the UK, the Korea outbreak has infected pigs, which cough out 100 times more virus than sheep or cattle. Soon after the first outbreak, another farm at Jinchon was infected. It was 25 km further south – outside the restricted zone – suggesting airborne spread.
Daejeon, the venue for matches involving South Africa, Spain, Poland and the US is 30 km south of Jinchon. But if this outbreak strikes throughout the country, as the one in 2000 did, all 10 Korean venues could be surrounded by sick animals.
Joint favourites France and Brazil begin the tournament in Korea and will almost certainly progress to matches in Japan, taking their travelling supporters with them.
Jabs versus slaughter
The World Organisation for Animal Health in Paris has confirmed that the virus is the Pan-Asian O virus that hit the UK in 2001, and Korea and Japan in 2000.
Korea contained that outbreak by vaccinating animals, but had recently stopped vaccinating again. Pirbright plans to sequence the virus from the two outbreaks. This could show whether the current one is a fresh invasion, or a leftover that somehow survived vaccination – though proving that would be difficult.
The result could affect whether countries use vaccination or mass slaughter to control FMD outbreaks in future.
