The outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Miyazaki Prefecture shows no signs of abating more than a month after it began. The central government's measures include vaccinating cattle and pigs within a radius of 10 km from farms affected by the disease and killing them later.
As a result, a total of some 320,000 cattle and pigs have been or will be destroyed — an unprecedented scale of disposal for Japan's livestock industry. By Tuesday, 99.6 percent of some 125,200 cattle and pigs picked for vaccinations had been vaccinated.
One of the 55 seed bulls owned by the Miyazaki prefectural government was destroyed May 21 after it showed symptoms of foot-and-mouth disease. Forty-nine others are to be destroyed. The entire seed bull stock could be wiped out if the remaining five are not free of infection. The seed bull that was destroyed and the remaining five have provided 90 percent of the sperm used for cattle production in Miyazaki Prefecture. The destruction of all seed bulls would devastate the livestock industry in the prefecture. Raising a seed bull is said to take seven years or longer.