• Journal of Veterinary Clinics
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• v.33 no.5
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• pp.278-285
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• 2016

Epidemiological studies have shown the association between transportation of live animals and the potential transmission of infectious disease between premises. This finding was also observed in the 2014-2015 foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreak in Korea. Furthermore, slaughterhouses played a key role in the global spread of the FMD virus during the epidemic. In this context, in-depth knowledge of the structure of direct and indirect contact between slaughterhouses is paramount for understanding the dynamics of FMD transmission. But the social network structure of vehicle movements to slaughterhouses in Korea remains unclear. Hence, the aim of this study was to configure a social network topology of vehicle movements between slaughterhouses for a better understanding of how they are potentially connected, and to explore whether FMD outbreaks can be explained by the network properties constructed in the study. We created five monthly directed networks based on the frequency and chronology of on- and off-slaughterhouse vehicle movements. For the monthly network, a node represented a slaughterhouse, and an edge (or link) denoted vehicle movement between two slaughterhouses. Movement data were retrieved from the national Korean Animal Health Integrated System (KAHIS) database, which tracks the routes of individual vehicle movements using a global positioning system (GPS). Electronic registration of livestock movements has been a mandatory requirement since 2013 to ensure traceability of such movements. For each of the five studied networks, the network structures were characterized by small-world properties, with a short mean distance, a high clustering coefficient, and a short diameter. In addition, a strongly connected component was observed in each of the created networks, and this giant component included 94.4% to 100% of all network nodes. The characteristic hub-and-spoke type of structure was not identified. Such a structural vulnerability in the network suggests that once an infectious disease (such as FMD) is introduced in a random slaughterhouse within the cohesive component, it can spread to every other slaughterhouse in the component. From an epidemiological perspective, for disease management, empirically derived small-world networks could inform decision-makers on the higher potential for a large FMD epidemic within the livestock industry, and could provide insights into the rapid-transmission dynamics of the disease across long distances, despite a standstill of animal movements during the epidemic, given a single incursion of infection in any slaughterhouse in the country.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Service
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• v.42 no.1
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• pp.31-37
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• 2019

There have been a total tenth FMD outbreaks in Korea and for the first time, type O and A were detected simultaneously in 2017, which led to difficulties in FMD control. For the effective prevention of FMD, the importance of discrimination of serotypes became greater. Therefore, the most urgent requirement in case of FMD outbreak is differential diagnosis of serotypes. In this study, we developed a PNA probe-mediated multiplex real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (rRT-PCR) assay using the peptide nucleic acid (PNA) probe, which is known to be stable to nucleotide mutation and that could specifically detect the all FMDV serotype A, FMDVA Yeoncheon strain which was occurred in Korea in 2017, and FMDV A viruses shown 96% similarity with FMDVA/Yeoncheon strain, at the same time. Therefore, It is believed that the newly introduced FMDVA will be effectively diagnosed using the PNA probe multiplex RT-PCR developed in this study, and ultimately contribute to the prevention of FMD.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.31 no.4
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• pp.489-498
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• 2018

Objective: Foot and mouth disease (FMD) and porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) are major diseases that interrupt porcine production. Because they are viral diseases, vaccinations are of only limited effectiveness in preventing outbreaks. To establish an alternative multi-resistant strategy against FMD virus (FMDV) and PRRS virus (PRRSV), the present study introduced two genetic modification techniques to porcine cells. Methods: First, cluster of differentiation 163 (CD163), the PRRSV viral receptor, was edited with the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats-CRISPR-associated protein 9 technique. The CD163 gene sequences of edited cells and control cells differed. Second, short hairpin RNA (shRNAs) were integrated into the cells. The shRNAs, targeting the 3D gene of FMDV and the open reading frame 7 (ORF7) gene of PRRSV, were transferred into fibroblasts. We also developed an in vitro shRNA verification method with a target gene expression vector. Results: shRNA activity was confirmed in vitro with vectors that expressed the 3D and ORF7 genes in the cells. Cells containing shRNAs showed lower transcript levels than cells with only the expression vectors. The shRNAs were integrated into CD163-edited cells to combine the two techniques, and the viral genes were suppressed in these cells. Conclusion: We established a multi-resistant strategy against viral diseases and an in vitro shRNA verification method.

• Journal of Veterinary Science
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.13.1-13.9
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• 2024

Background: Foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) is a highly contagious viral disease in livestock that has tremendous economic impact nationally. After multiple FMD outbreaks, the South Korean government implemented a vaccination policy for efficient disease control. However, during active surveillance by quarantine authorities, pig farms have reported an insufficient antibody positivity rate to FMD. Objective: In this study, the spatial and temporal trends of insufficiency among pig farms were analyzed, and the effect of the number of government veterinary officers was explored as a potential preventive factor. Methods: Various data were acquired, including national-level surveillance data for antibody insufficiency from the Korea Animal Health Integrated System, the number of veterinary officers, and the number of local pig farms. Temporal and geographical descriptive analyses were conducted to overview spatial and temporal trends. Additionally, logistic regression models were employed to investigate the association between the number of officers per pig farm with antibody insufficiency. Spatial cluster analysis was conducted to detect spatial clusters. Results: The results showed that the incidence of insufficiency tended to decrease in recent years (odds ratio [OR], 0.803; 95% confidence interval [95% CIs], 0.721-0.893), and regions with a higher density of governmental veterinary officers (OR, 0.942; 95% CIs, 0.918-0.965) were associated with a lower incidence. Conclusions: This study implies that previously conducted national interventions would be effective, and the quality of government-provided veterinary care could play an important role in addressing the insufficient positivity rate of antibodies.

• Journal of The Korean Society of Agricultural Engineers
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• v.62 no.4
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• pp.87-97
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• 2020

The livestock infections had been happened seasonally, but they have gradually changed to be irrelevant to seasons and have an aspect to rapidly spread after outbreak. Especially in Korea, proactive disinfection measures are very important because the livestock farms are located densely so high as to accelerate the spread of disease between farms. livestock disease outbreaks like HPAI and FMD occurred with high probability due to vehicles visiting the farms, this study is to evaluate the efficiency of livestock vehicle disinfection systems by investigating the disinfectant coverage according to the type of vehicle disinfection system and the type of vehicle quantitatively. In field experiments, water-sensitive papers (WSPs) were attached to 21 locations on the surface of four vehicles (sedan, SUV, truck, and feed transport), respectively, and exposed to disinfectants while the vehicle was sprayed in two vehicle disinfection systems (tunnel type and simplified type). The WSPs were scanned and image-processed to calculate the disinfectant coverage. The results showed that the tunnel-type vehicle disinfection system had a better disinfection performance with an average coverage of 90.27% for all vehicles compared to 32.62% of the simplified type system. The problem of the simplified system was a wide coefficient of variation (1.05-1.31) of the disinfectant coverage between 21 locations indicating a need for further improvement of nozzle location and arrangement.

• Korean Journal of Veterinary Service
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.459-467
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• 2006

This study was designed to investigate if there were groundwater contamination in 17 landfill where slaughtered animals were buried during the crisis of 2002 foot-and-mouth-disease (FMD) outbreaks in Gyeonggi province. From March to August 2005 groundwater was collected once a month from 17 sites, and examined with potential for hydrogen (pH), colour, turbidity, lead (Pb), arsenic (As), mercury (Hg), cadmium (Cd), copper (Cu), zinc (Zn) , iron (Fe), manganese (Mn) , aluminium (Al), nitrate-nitrogen $(NO_3-N)$, ammonia-nitrogen $(NH_3-N)$, microbial pathogen and Escherichia spp. In the examination of $NH_3-N$ which of the mean concentration was from not-detected (ND) to 0.05 mg/l. The range of $NH_3-N$ level was $0.3-24.1mg/{\ell}$. However, groundwater from four sites was to go beyond the drinking water quality standard (DWQS), i.e., the mean concentration of those were $15.5mg/{\ell}\;(site\;1),\;20.7mg/{\ell}\;(site\;9),\;24.1mg/{\ell}\;(site\;13)\;and\;10.6mg/{\ell}\;(site\;17)$. In the investigation of pH, colour and turbidity, all of the pH were below of DWQS (pH 5.8-6.6), but one site in color test and four sites in turbidity test were over the standard level. Among 9 metal ions examined, Mn was in excess of DWQS, and its concentration was $2.4mg/{\ell}$. Pb, Cd, Hg and As were not traced. The contents of Cu, Zn, Fe and Al were $ND-0.22mg/{\ell},\;0.01-0.05mg/{\ell},\;ND-0.05mg/{\ell}\;and\;0.03-0.16mg/{\ell}$, respectively. Escherichiae spp were not identified, but bacterial colonies were detected at 3 groundwater including 2 sites over the DWQS at the level of $491CFU/m{\ell}\;(site\;4)\;and\;217CFU/m{\ell}\;(site\;15)$.

• Korean Journal of Soil Science and Fertilizer
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• v.45 no.2
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• pp.241-247
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• 2012

Many infectious diseases have emerged or re-emerged during the past 50 years in South Korea. There were three outbreaks of foot and mouth disease (FMD) in South Korea between January 2010 and March 2011. Over 3.45 million animals were slaughtered (33.3% of the existing pigs, 8.4% of dairy cows and 3.4% of cattle). To select optimal degradation agents of animal cadavers, degradation rates and fertilizer components of pig cadavers were investigated using hydrogen chloride (HCl), potassium hydroxide (KOH) and sodium hydroxide (NaOH) hydrolysis methods. Degradation rates of pig cadavers using HCl, KOH and NaOH were 81.1, 82.8 and 91.6%, respectively. Total nitrogen (T-N) concentration in degradation solution of pig cadavers using KOH hydrolysis method was higher than that in NaOH and HCl hydrolysis methods. Total phosphorus ($P_2O_5$) concentrations in degradation solution of pig cadavers in all hydrolysis methods ranged 0.14 ~ 0.28%. Total potassium ($K_2O$) concentration for KOH hydrolysis method was higher than that for other hydrolysis methods. The concentration of T-N and $K_2O$ in degradation solution of pig cadavers by KOH hydrolysis method were higher than that in NaOH and HCl hydrolysis methods. Thus, to recycle animal cadavers in agriculture, the optimal degradation agent for hydrolysis was KOH.