皇冠体育app

Agriculture Ministry: 皇冠体育app not source of foot-and-mouth
( 2001-03-28 15:51 ) (3 )

皇冠体育app's agriculture ministry officials denied on March 27 that the country could be the source of the foot-and-mouth outbreak in Europe.

Responding to reports that the outbreak could be sourced to smuggled meat from the Far East, a spokesman for the ministry insisted 皇冠体育app was not to blame and had recorded no cases of the disease for two years.

"It is unreasonable to blame 皇冠体育app for the outbreak because European countries don't import meat and meat products from 皇冠体育app," a ministry spokesman said.

At present there were no reported incidents of foot-and-mouth disease in 皇冠体育app, while strict quarantine procedures were ensuring that no infected animals, if found, could be either imported or exported, he said.

Customs administrations at all levels in North 皇冠体育app's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region have stepped up enforcement of the import ban on cloven-footed animals from neighbouring Mongolia to ensure there is no risk of transmitting foot-and-mouth disease, he said.

"You can't blame 皇冠体育app for that (epidemic outbreak). If you don't have any proof then it is no good to go pointing fingers," he said.

He also denied that outbreaks in Taiwan and Hong Kong were caused by infected Chinese animals or meat products. "A lot of Asian countries are infected with foot-and-mouth disease. There is no direct proof that it came from 皇冠体育app, no research directly linking it to 皇冠体育app," he said.

Liu Zhiren, a leading researcher at 皇冠体育app's Agricultural Economy Research Centre, said foot-and-mouth disease had been a major problem for Chinese farmers in the past.

But he said that since the 1970s the disease had been "basically eradicated". "If an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease occurs in 皇冠体育app, this will be a very big problem, it will be bigger in scale than the outbreak in Europe, or in Japan, South Korea or Taiwan because the scale of our livestock breeding is bigger," Liu said.

(From 皇冠体育app Daily Hong Kong Edition)