The number of African swine fever cases here in Korea keeps going up... with 13 cases confirmed so far.<br />Following the traces of the virus being found in a dead wild boar near the Demilitarized Zone, the military has ordered the troops guarding the border to shoot any wild pigs they see in the area.<br />Our Kim Jae-hee has the latest.<br />A suspected new case of African swine fever has been reported on Incheon's Baekryeong-do Island on Friday.<br />This comes after the 13th case of the disease was confirmed on Thursday at a pig farm in Gimpo, west of Seoul.<br />Authorities are working heaven and earth to stop the animal disease from spreading.<br />South Korea's Prime Minister Lee Nak-yon, during a meeting on Friday morning at the National Disaster and Safety Status Control Center, stressed the need for better management of the outbreak.<br />"African swine fever has spread in Paju, Gimpo, and Yeoncheon. We must look back on the past handlings and check if there was adequate management of those cases."<br />The Agriculture Ministry also decided to extend the 48-hour standstill on transporting pigs.<br />"To strengthen quarantine efforts near the inter-Korean border areas, the ministry has decided to extend the movement ban on pigs previously issued for Incheon, Gyeonggi-do Province and Gangwon-do Province by another 48 hours,... starting from 3:30 AM Friday."<br />The ministry will cull all pigs within a 3-kilometer radius of the infected farms in Gimpo and Paju.<br />For the pigs outside that radius, the government will buy the pigs off the farmers.<br />The pigs will then be sent to slaughterhouses where they will be tested before the meat is sold.<br />But in order to do this, farmers must register application forms for purchase to the respective cities in advance.<br />For the first time on record, the virus has been discovered in a wild boar as well.<br />Traces of the African swine fever were found in a dead wild boar found near the Demilitarized Zone in Yeoncheon,... just 1-point-4 kilometers away from Southern Limit Line of the DMZ.<br />There is a possibility the wild boar could have originated from North Korea,... where an African swine fever outbreak was reported in May.<br />Because of this, South Korea's military on Friday ordered troops at the border to shoot any wild pig crossing the Demilitarized Zone.<br />Kim Jae-hee, Arirang News.<br />
