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North Koreans appear to be cooperating closely with international authorities on their outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD). In addition to the FAO assessment team that recently visited the country, they have already filed a follow-up report with the World Animal Health Organization the initial notification was on February 7 and they have promised weekly updates.
One bit of information that is fueling concern is not only the number and geographic spread of the outbreaks—89 as of February 21—but also the fact that the update does not show any record of culling in the affected areas. Nor is it listed among the measures applied.
If the disease has not reached an epidemic state, then vaccination might be an appropriate preventive measure. The Voice of America recently reported that the North American Foot-and-Mouth Disease Vaccine Bank—a US/Canada/Mexico consortium--is willing to consider providing vaccines to North Korea if a request is made.
But where FMD is epidemic, standard practice is that all infected animals should be slaughtered and disposed of within twenty-four hours of diagnosis, to reduce the time over which animals are producing and releasing virus. Barriers to achieving this objective are both behavioral—the natural reluctance to slaughter valuable livestock—but also practical: the inability to detect outbreaks quickly and act on them with alacrity. Quite early in the outbreak, authorities imposed controls on movement into Pyongyang, even though the outbreak appeared to emanate from the capital city.
If the South is having problems controlling its outbreak, the North is likely to have an even tougher time.
