EDITORIAL: Foot-and-mouth disease

Miyazaki Prefecture lifted its ban on livestock transfers Tuesday, signaling an end to the foot-and-mouth epidemic that had raged for more than three months.

Nearly 290,000 cattle and pigs--roughly 20 percent of all livestock in the prefecture--were killed to stop the disease from spreading. Local livestock farmers made extraordinary sacrifices, both psychologically and financially.

The government must take steps to ensure that these farmers recover since they are an integral part of the nation's food production. At the same time, the government should learn from the catastrophe and make good use of those lessons for future policy.

Last time the disease broke out, in 2000, a total of 740 head of cattle were destroyed in Miyazaki Prefecture and Hokkaido. This time, the situation was much worse, partly because the disease spread among hogs, causing it to spread rapidly among other animals.

This is the horror of foot-and-mouth disease. For many people in Japan, it was their first time to be exposed to the terrible consequences of the disease.

There are no guarantees that the virus is banished from Japan. It could crop up again anytime.

The emergence of the disease highlighted a number of problems, most notably the official response.

First, there was a delay in detection. It recently came to light that while the first case was confirmed on April 20, the infection actually started in March and the disease had already spread to more than 10 farms by then. It means the infection spread before anyone realized it.

Often, it is difficult to diagnose the disease from symptoms alone. There is an urgent need to establish a system that provides for early detection. Genetic testing is one way to go about it.

Once an infection is confirmed, all animals in the neighboring area should be immediately destroyed and buried. Culling in recent weeks was delayed because of a lack of places to bury the animals.

According to the livestock infectious diseases prevention law, each farmer is responsible for securing a burial ground. But compared with 60 years ago when the law was established, farms are now much larger in scale.

In particular, pig farmers have little land to spare. Infection was contained at an early stage in areas where burials were accomplished without delay. This indicates that local governments, instead of individual farmers, need to secure sites for burial.

It also became apparent that there are too few veterinarians who can treat livestock. Thankfully, vets from all over the country rushed to Miyazaki to offer their services.

Teams of experts must be ready for immediate dispatch to infected areas. The number of vets must be increased over the long term. It is the government's responsibility to implement these measures.

Legally, prefectural governments are responsible for dealing with outbreaks of infectious diseases in livestock. The trouble is, diseases can easily spread across prefectural borders. In this regard, the central government must play the role of command center.

In the fight against infectious diseases, whether it is humans or animals that are affected, a quick response is crucial. In order to respond quickly, prefectures and the central government need to reconfirm their respective roles and methods of cooperation.

--The Asahi Shimbun, July 29