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FMD no threat to Taiwan: officials

The global spread of foot-and-mouth (FMD) disease poses little threat to Taiwan's livestock due to an extensive immunization campaign against the disease, according to animal health officials and industry experts.

Watson Sung (宋華聰), deputy director general of the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health, Inspection and Quarantine told the Taipei Times yesterday that "100 percent of cattle, sheep, goats and deer and more than 80 percent of hogs have been immunized against FMD."

As the disease spreads throughout Europe and now Argentina, Sung is optimistic that Taiwan's livestock will be safe behind the vaccination program initiated after a disastrous outbreak among the nation's hogs in March 1997.

At that time, some 6,000 cases of the disease were reported and nearly five million hogs destroyed.

Initially, officials thought they could stamp out the disease through massive extermination of infected and exposed animals, Sung said. But as the disease spread out of control, authorities switched to vaccinations as the main form of defense, he added.

"Since then we only have had sporadic cases with six cases in 1998, 16 in 1999 -- due to the illegal smuggling of livestock from China by a Kinmen farmer -- and six cases in 2000," Sung said. To date, only one outbreak has resulted in the culling of three pigs in Taipei County this year.

The vaccination program was initially funded by the government but the cost of the vaccinations -- around NT$20 to NT$30 per shot -- was quickly passed on to the farmers who face fines of up to NT$50,000 if their livestock was found not to be immunized.

Industry insiders also dismissed the possibility of the global outbreak making landfall in Taiwan and confirmed the effectiveness of the vaccination program.

"The vaccination program against FMD has been very thorough ... it is unlikely that an outbreak could be sparked here by the current global epidemic," said an executive at a company that imports beef from New Zealand.

An executive at a Taiwan pharmaceutical firm that produces more than 50 percent of the FMD vaccine used in Taiwan agreed, saying the vaccination's wide coverage almost "guaranteed little or no impact on domestic livestock."

So far, 240 FMD cases have been reported in the UK and 11 suspected cases in France. The virus has also been reported in Argentina.

While confident the nation's livestock are relatively safe, the government is not taking chances.

"We cannot say there is no risk because people travel from one place to another so frequently, but we've put the disinfectant mats at the airport [and] banned the importation of animals and animal by-products from infected countries" Sung said.

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