Want China Times
Date: 2015-05-11
By: CNA and Staff Reporter
Taiwan’s outlying island county of Kinmen started to cull 198 cattle on Saturday
This cow is to be put down on suspicion of foot-and-mouth disease in Kinmen, May 9. (Photo/Lee Chin-sheng)
afternoonon around a ranch in Jinning township which was found to have cattle infected with foot-and-mouth disease. The cull should be completed within two days, the county government said the same day.
The virus, confirmed as type-A foot-and-mouth disease, was found for the first time in the Republic of China (Taiwan) in the meat of a slaughtered cow from the farm, Council of Agriculture deputy minister Wang Cheng-teng said Friday. Further tests revealed that another cow on the farm was infected with the virus, Wang said, adding that the animal has euthanized.
The virus strain was tested with 99.9% similarity to a virus strain found in southern China’s Guangdong province in 2013, the council said.
Wang said the virus originated in China and may have been transported via the “mini three links” between Fujian on the Chinese mainland and the island of Kinmen, located about 10 km from the city of Xiamen on the mainland.
