Wednesday 28 July 2010

FMD, the next stage

As of midnight yesterday, all restrictions on stock movement in Miyazaki prefecture  ended.  Three months after the first signs of foot and mouth disease and after the slaughter of 290,000 pigs and cattle, there are no signs of the the disease remaining.  Through the coming months and years,  monitoring will be vigilant.  Not enough is known at this stage about why the outbreak occurred, and a further outbreak is possible; however if it occurs again,  a lot has been learned about how to contain it.

Now that the disease is contained, the effort will shift to helping farmers get back on their feet. It's likely to take years, but it has begun.

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