The Council of Agriculture has placed Taiwan on alert as cattle from a farm on the island of Kinmen have tested positive for foot-and-mouth disease.
Kinmen, a Taiwanese-administered island off the coast of China, is famous for its beef products. However, a regularly scheduled inspection of Kinmen slaughterhouses in March found a case of foot-and-mouth disease.
The case was traced back to a farm raising 176 cattle. Inspectors found antibodies directed against foot-and-mouth disease in two more cows from the same farm during random follow-up tests in April.
At a meeting of experts Friday, Deputy Agriculture Minister Wang Cheng-teng said that a second round of nucleotide sequence analysis has confirmed the cases. Wang said that the remaining 175 cattle on the farm will need to be culled and the farm itself disinfected.
The Council of Agriculture has banned the transport of all Kinmen beef, pork, and mutton products off the island. The council has expanded inspections of deer, horses, and other animals susceptible to infection to a three-kilometer radius around farms.
Meanwhile, on Taiwan, the council has begun limiting how often workers can enter and leave farms and strengthening disinfection measures.