New cases of foot-and-mouth disease are spreading rapidly across China and have already been reported in 12 of the country's 23 provinces. This information has been reported by major Asian media outlets such as Caixin, Nikkei Asia, and Vision Times. On March 28th, the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture confirmed two outbreaks of the disease, one in Yining County, Xinjiang, and another in Gulang County, Gansu. At that time, 6,229 head of cattle were culled, and since then, Beijing has reinforced border controls for the entry and exit of livestock. According to local media, the reported cases of foot-and-mouth disease are of the SAT1 type (South African type 1), which has a mortality rate of up to 50% in calves and for which there is still no effective vaccine. The vaccines against the disease widely used in China currently target mainly traditional serotypes, such as O and A. The outbreaks are occurring at the same time that Russia is also facing an outbreak of bovine scabies in the Siberian region of Novosibirsk, which borders Kazakhstan and could be the initial focus. According to NTD Television, among the 12 provinces that have already detected cases are: Xinjiang, Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Liaoning, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Shandong, Shanxi, Ningxia, Hebei, Guizhou, and Anhui. China currently has a cattle herd of approximately 100.4 million animals. Together, the 12 provinces account for approximately 52% of the national sample.
This text was translated by machine from Brazilian Portuguese.