Was cow infection covered up? / Reporting case may have prolonged restrictions in Miyazaki Pref.

The Yomiuri Shimbun

The Miyazaki prefectural government slaughtered a cow suspected of being infected with foot-and-mouth disease in June without reporting it to the central government, it has been learned.

According to the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry, officials of the Miyazaki Livestock Hygiene Service Center discovered a cow suspected of having the disease at a farm of Shintomicho in the prefecture on June 25.

The prefecture later said it slaughtered the cow after concluding it was not infected with foot-and-mouth disease.

However, veterinarians at the site when the animal was slaughtered later told the farm ministry, "The cow had obvious symptoms of foot-and-mouth disease. We urged the prefecture to test the animal, but it declined."

The Domestic Animal Infectious Diseases Control Law requires veterinarians and farms to report animals suspected of having an infectious disease to the central government via the prefecture. The ministry is likely to investigate the prefecture for possibly violating the law.

On June 25, the town had confirmed no cases of foot-and-mouth disease since June 12, and there had been no outbreaks in the prefecture since June 19. Based on this, the prefecture partially lifted the state of emergency on July 1.

"[The prefecture's action] makes it seem like it wanted to hide the discovery of the infected cow because it didn't want to delay the lifting of the state of emergency. But the cow should've been examined," a ministry official said.

The cow was found at a livestock farm with about 500 cows in the area where the outbreak was concentrated, and where the movement of animals was restricted, according to the ministry. The farm's animals were vaccinated on May 24.

When about 40 veterinarians and animal quarantine officers of the hygiene service center were culling cows at the farm June 25, they found a cow that appeared to have foot-and-mouth disease. After confirming the symptoms, the veterinarians urged prefectural officials to photograph the inside of the cow's mouth and take blood samples.

However, an animal quarantine officer and veterinarian in charge at the site said such measures were not necessary. The cow was killed and buried that day.

Kunio Kodama, section chief of the prefectural government's livestock section, admitted in an interview with The Yomiuri Shimbun that there were objections about slaughtering the cow without first conducting tests.

However, Kodama insisted, "The symptoms were mild and we determined the cow wasn't infected. The prefecture's animal quarantine officers had authorization to kill and bury the cow. There's no problem with their action."

However, the ministry questioned the three veterinarians present when the cow was killed, and they said the animal obviously had symptoms of the disease.

"There were blisters on its tongue and ulcerations in the nose and on the gums," the ministry quoted one veterinarian as saying.

Another veterinarian was quoted as saying, "Those are typical symptoms of foot-and-mouth disease. We urged the quarantine officer many times to examine the cow, but he didn't listen to us."

"[If a cow] had been found to be infected with foot-and-mouth disease, it would've delayed lifting the restrictions on the movement of livestock," agriculture minister Masahiko Yamada said Thursday morning.

"It's regrettable the suspicious case wasn't reported. We plan to thoroughly [investigate it]," he said.

Miyazaki Gov. Hideo Higashikokubaru told reporters Thursday morning that he saw no problem with the case. "The prefecture acted properly," he said.