South Korea on Tuesday confirmed an additional case of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in the country's central region. The latest case at a pig farm in Yesan, 134 kilometers south of Seoul, raises the total number of confirmed FMD cases to 121 since the first outbreak was confirmed in Andong on Nov. 29 last year, Xinhua quoted the Ministry for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries as saying. All 3,000 pigs on the property have been ordered culled along with livestock within a 500-meter radius of the farm, to prevent further spread of the disease, the ministry said. The highly contagious animal disease has forced Seoul to cull and bury over 2.1 million animals so far, with losses estimated to be around two trillion won (1.78 billion U.S. dollars). South Korea has been vaccinating all livestock across the country in the face of the severest outbreak of FMD in the history. In addition to the latest series of outbreaks, the country was hit by the disease in 2000, 2002 and two more times early last year.
