The Japanese government has announced new
measures to fight the
outbreak of
foot-and-mouth disease, which was
detected last month among
livestock in the southern prefecture of Miyazaki.
Agriculture Minister Hirotaka Akamatsu announced the measures on Wednesday after
consulting with the Miyazaki prefectural government.
The new steps
call for all pigs and
cattle within a 10-kilometer
radius of affected areas to be
vaccinated, then
slaughtered.
In areas between 10 and 20 kilometers from affected sites, farmers are being urged to
market all pigs and cattle, even
undersized ones, as soon as possible.
In both cases the government will compensate farmers for losses.
The measures also call for efforts to
secure sites for
burying slaughtered livestock, and for an increase in
veterinarians and
Self-Defense Force personnel.
More than 200,000 pigs and cattle in the targeted areas will be vaccinated and destroyed, in addition to some 118,000 already identified for slaughter.