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South Korea to establish
foot-and-mouth vaccine plant by 2020
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[February 20, 2017]
SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea plans
to set up a plant to manufacture a locally developed foot-and-mouth
vaccine by 2020 as part of efforts to combat outbreaks of the viral
animal disease, the country's agriculture ministry said on Monday.
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 Asia's fourth-largest economy currently relies on imported vaccines
from manufacturers such as animal health business Merial to
regularly inoculate its livestock and to bolster inventories during
outbreaks of the disease.
"After securing original vaccine production technology by 2017 based
on our six-year research result... we plan to operate a
foot-and-mouth vaccine plant in 2020," Lee Junwon, vice agriculture
minister told a briefing.
South Korea earlier this month sought emergency vaccine imports
after two different types of the disease were found within a week of
each other.
Nine cases of foot-and-mouth disease have been confirmed so far in
the latest outbreak, but there have been no new cases since Feb. 13,
the ministry statement said. As of Sunday, some 1,400 cattle had
been culled.
Korea plans to import a total of 32 million doses of foot-and-mouth
vaccines this year, the vice-minister said.
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(Reporting By Jane Chung; Editing by Richard Pullin)
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