FMD test at North Gyeongsang pig farm reversed to negative; all restrictions lifted

A foot-and-mouth disease case announced at a pig farm in Yecheon-gun, North Gyeongsang Province, has been reversed after retesting confirmed all samples negative. The government removed the farm from its list of FMD-affected sites and lifted all emergency disease-control measures, including a raised alert level and a temporary movement ban.

The Central Disaster Management Headquarters for FMD said Sunday that North Gyeongsang Province conducted individual animal tests and barn-by-barn sample retests at the farm, all of which came back negative.

The headquarters had announced Saturday that a pig farm in Yecheon-gun had an FMD outbreak after North Gyeongsang Province reported positive results from barn-level tests. With all subsequent tests returning negative, the headquarters corrected its earlier announcement.

As a result, all emergency measures imposed on Yecheon-gun and surrounding areas — including the elevated disease alert, a 48-hour temporary movement ban and the establishment of a disease-control zone — have been lifted.

However, the detection of FMD antigens in environmental samples taken June 25 from a slaughterhouse in North Gyeongsang Province remains a separate matter. Because the farm in question is epidemiologically linked to that slaughterhouse, movement controls and retesting there will continue. Authorities also plan to keep investigating 38 other farms with epidemiological ties to the slaughterhouse to determine whether any outbreak has occurred.

The headquarters said it will also launch a probe into North Gyeongsang Province's testing process and the circumstances that led to the correction.

"Under World Organisation for Animal Health standards, detection of FMD antigens only in environmental samples — not in the animals themselves — does not constitute an FMD outbreak," the headquarters said.