South Korea-Dealing with the swine flu publicity.

SOUTH KOREA-South Korea will not overreact to the current swine flu outbreak for fear it could further hurt local pig farms and restaurants, a senior government official said Wednesday.

Food and agriculture minister Chang Tae-pyong told reporters that Seoul is taking all necessary steps to guard against the spread of the disease in the country in accordance with clearly proven scientific facts about risks associated with the virus.

"Seoul has taken swift and concrete steps to deal with the outbreak, but it must not take any action that can cause unwarranted social fear," he said, adding that public concerns may be causing pork consumption to decrease, posing problems for farmers and the service sector.

He stressed that experts were in agreement that the disease could not be transmitted through the consumption of meat, while concerns about pig intestines being a threat were unfounded.

Chang added that while the risk of live pigs passing on the virulent strain of the flu was remote, Seoul took steps to temporarily ban imports to allay public concerns. The move will bar live pig imports from Canada, the United States and Mexico.

The official, however, made clear that unless there was concrete evidence to indicate that pork could pass on the disease to humans, the government will take no steps to halt imports.

Countries like Russia, China and Indonesia had announced that they would not import pork from North America following reported deaths over the weekend.

"Stepped up monitoring and testing of imported meat should be sufficient to deal with concerns," he said, adding other countries in Europe and Japan took no action to block pork trade.

The minister also said that a system will be introduced that can permit inspectors to systematically check 10 percent of the 7,700 pig farms in the country on a regular basis to detect any infected animals.

He said experts are to take particular care to check for the mutated strain of the H1N1 virus that the World Heath Organization blames for over 150 deaths in Mexico.

The minister, meanwhile, said that while deaths have been reported abroad, treatment with existing anti-viral drugs seems to be working with the one suspected case found in the country responding well to Tamiflu.

"South Korea has a well established standard operating procedure to deal with both animal and human outbreaks so there is no need to be overly concerned," he said.

(Yonhap)