The government on Monday pledged to complete the vaccination of all cattle nationwide against lumpy skin disease by Nov. 10.
The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs imported 1.89 million doses of the vaccine early this week and hopes to bring in another 2.1 million soon. With 540,000 doses of vaccine stockpiled last year, that secures a total of 4.53 million doses.
Approximately 4.1 million heads of cattle are being raised by Korean farmers. It will take about three weeks for antibodies to form, so outbreaks of the disease are expected to surface for some time.
As of Monday, 64 farms were infected and a total of 4,191 cattle subject to culling.
Health officials vaccinate cattle against lumpy skin disease on a farm in Hampyeong, South Jeolla Province on Monday. /Newsis
The disease is spreading across the country, with South Jeolla and South Gyeongsang province seeing their first cases on Monday.
Ministry official Kwon Jae-han said, “On the West Sea coast, mosquitoes from China seem to be a major source of infection, transported by wind or ships and in inter-Korean border areas it is believed to have spread through the demilitarized zone.”
The government reiterated that the impact on beef prices will be limited. “Over 2,000 cattle have been culled due to the disease, which is less than 0.01 percent of the total,” Kwon said.
In reality the wholesale price of beef had been around W17,000 to W18,000 per kilogram in the mid of this month but jumped to W20,530 on Oct. 24, after the first outbreak of the disease was reported (US$1=W1,351). But as of the end of last week it had stabilized at W17,726.
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