quarantine agency-launch S. Korea to launch new unified quarantine agency

South Korea will launch a new unified quarantine agency to handle farm and fisheries products in an effort to strengthen the country's ability to protect public health and local industries from animal and plant diseases, the government said Tuesday. The Animal, Plant and Fisheries Quarantine and Inspection Agency (QIA), set to start work on Wednesday, aims to prevent a repeat of the recent foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreak that forced the government to cull more than 3.47 million pigs and cows at a cost of over 3 trillion won (US$2.77 billion), the farm ministry said. The QIA will be created by merging the National Veterinary Research and Quarantine Service, the National Plant Quarantine Service and the National Fisheries Products Quality Inspection Service. "It can mobilize more expert personnel and high-tech laboratory equipment to help prevent or contain future outbreaks," the ministry said. "More inspectors can also be used to prevent diseases from entering the country." The unified quarantine office is expected to streamline the country's response time to various outbreaks and make it easier to coordinate decontamination efforts that can safeguard public health and protect local livestock, fisheries and farming sectors, it said. The new agency, to be based in Anyang, just south of Seoul, will be manned by 1,335 government officials, researchers and quarantine inspectors, and have five emergency testing laboratories around the country. These laboratories will be able to carry out tests on FMD, bird flu and other animal and plant diseases more quickly than in the past, which can speed up the overall decision-making process to combat outbreaks, the ministry said.