MOIS Provides 7 Billion Won in Special Grants for Disaster and Safety Management to Combat Avian Influenza

[Financial News]  As highly pathogenic avian influenza (AI) spreads to poultry farms, the government has urgently provided 7 billion won in biosecurity funding to all 16 cities and provinces nationwide. Compared with last year, it moved up the timing of the support by 15 days and increased the amount by 2 billion won. 
The Ministry of the Interior and Safety (MOIS) said on the 15th that it had allocated 7 billion won in special grants for disaster and safety management on the 9th to help prevent the spread of HPAI. The funds will be used by local governments for on-site disease control, including purchasing disinfectants and operating base disinfection facilities and mobile checkpoints.
This winter, HPAI was first detected in wild birds at Suncheon Bay on the 20th of last month. It was subsequently detected for the first time at a layer farm in Yeoncheon County, Gyeonggi Province, on the 3rd of this month, and outbreaks have since been reported at three more poultry farms, including in Jangheung County, Yeoju and Ganghwa. These figures are as of 1 p.m. on the 13th.
MOIS has been operating an HPAI response support headquarters since the 4th. It is dispatching on-site situation management officers to affected areas to check disease-control conditions and supporting local governments’ disaster and safety departments and disease-control departments in jointly responding to measures such as movement restrictions and disinfection.
MOIS is sharing disease-control information in real time with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, while also conducting joint inspections of poultry farms with the Animal and Plant Quarantine Agency (APQA). It carried out emergency inspections of layer farms from the 23rd to the 30th of last month, and has been conducting both regular and unscheduled inspections since this month.
Kim Kwang-yong, head of MOIS’s Disaster and Safety Management Headquarters, said, “Because highly pathogenic avian influenza can have a major impact not only on farms but also on the national economy, I ask local governments to pursue thorough disease control and respond swiftly,” adding, “MOIS will also do its utmost, together with the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, local governments and others, to prevent the spread of avian influenza.”
[email protected] Lee Bomi Reporter