Foot and mouth disease spreads across Asia, causing fatalities in China

Sonya Bryskine

This year, Foot and mouth disease has struck earlier than normal and the number of deaths in China were reported 143 per cent higher. Nearly 430,000 children have been sickened by the disease so far this year.

Every spring and summer China sees deadly outbreaks of the disease, which typically infects infants and children. Most cases are mild, with children recovering quickly after suffering little more than a fever and rash. But the disease has struck earlier than normal this year, and by May 4 the number of deaths reported were 143 per cent higher than the same period last year, said Xiao Donglou, the Health Ministry』s deputy director of disease control and prevention, according to the Beijing News.

The deadly foot and mouth disease (FMD) is throwing cattle farmers into disarray, as mass slaughter of livestock in Japan, South Korea and China continues.

Last week Japan, the world』s number one feed-grain importer, ordered a mass culling of pigs and cattle to prevent the spread of its first foot-and-mouth disease outbreak in a decade.

The government has ordered the destruction of 73,653 pigs in Miyazaki prefecture, about 0.7 per cent of the national herd, said Shinichi Igawa at the animal health division of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, reported Bloomberg.

About 6600 beef cattle and cows, or 0.1 per cent of the national total, will also be slaughtered, according to the report.

The cull under way is more than 100-times larger than during Japan』s last outbreak in 2010, when 740 animals were slaughtered in Miyazaki and on the northern island of Hokkaido.

Over 200,000 kids sick in China

While in Japan no fatalities have been recorded yet, in China the disease has been reported to have killed at least 260 children this year alone.

Every spring and summer China sees deadly outbreaks of the disease, which typically infects infants and children, particularly in rural areas where hygiene is poor. Most cases are mild, with children recovering quickly after suffering little more than a fever and rash.

But the disease has struck earlier than normal this year, and by May 4 the number of deaths reported were 143 per cent higher than the same period last year, said Xiao Donglou, the Health Ministry』s deputy director of disease control and prevention, according to the Beijing News.

Nearly 430,000 children have been sickened by the disease so far this year while severe cases have jumped by two-thirds to 5454, the report cited Xiao as saying. Last year, there were 353 deaths from the disease, according to Health Ministry figures.

Parents of affected children are, however, citing high costs as affecting their children』s treatment, and have called on authorities to step in and cover their medical bills.

It costs more than 10,000 yuan ($1,460) to treat just one person, and medical insurance covers just about 10 per cent of the cost, while some medicines to treat the disease are not covered by insurance, the report by Oriental Outlook Weekly, a magazine published by Xinhua said.

Fatalities from the disease in China are rising every year. In 2009, 353 children died from the disease, up from 126 in 2008. The number of infections in 2009 was 1.15 million, representing an annual increase of 480,000, the report said.

Despite Chinese authorities attempting to restrain the spread of the disease, South Korea has blamed China for being the source of its problems.

The Korean Times reports that a farm owner who had traveled to China appears to be responsible for the spread of foot-and-mouth last month, which led to the culling of some 50,000 animals.

The state-run National Veterinary Research & Quarantine Service (NVRQS) said that a 48-year-old rancher with surname Kim from Ganghwa Island seems to have carried in the highly contagious disease, according to The Korean Times.

Kim is not legally liable for the initiation of the outbreak but his compensation for the destruction of the 177 cattle is reduced in order to discourage trips to countries where the disease is common.

Since the outbreak was first reported on April 8 at Kim』s farm in Ganghwa, 60km west of Seoul, there have been 11 more cases in various scattered locations in Gyeonggi and South Chungcheong Provinces.

In order to prevent the spread of the disease, around 50,000 animals were destroyed within a 3-kilometer radius of the outbreaks. Yet, the disease has yet to be contained.

FMD affects cloven-hoofed animals, mostly domesticated ones including cattle, goats, pigs, deer and sheep. The problem is that vaccination is difficult as the virus seamlessly evolves and mutates. It is rarely passed on to humans, but can be contracted via contact with contaminated animals.

Symptoms of FMD in humans include malaise, fever, vomiting, red ulcerative lesions (surface-eroding damaged spots) of the oral tissues, and sometimes vesicular lesions (small blisters) of the skin.