Investigation of national live stock breeding facilities workers in Korea

Several national control plans have been formulated and carried out to prevent domestic animals from various infectious diseases in Korea. Typical plans include the prevention of diseases by vaccination and the quarantine activities to reduce or cut off the occurrence and transmission. Although such great efforts to prevent diseases every year, difficulties have been experienced in controling transmittable diseases like foot-and-mouth disease and bird influenza. The present study was conducted to investigate the awareness, knowledge, difficulties and routine activities in controling infectious diseases on persons-in-charge of preventive measures in national live stock breeding facilities. A questionnaire survey composed of 81 questions in three categories was carried out on 30 subjects (12 veterinarians and 18 ordinary workers) serving in nine national breeding stock farms. According to the results of the survey analysis, the difficulties and concerns in carrying out preventive measures experienced by the veterinarians and the ordinary workers were similar. Shortage of budgets and manpower was the top ranked concern in performing preventive measures for both the veterinarians and the ordinary workers. Manual or guideline on controling infectious diseases for routine or emergency case were established in all of the facilities, however those were not executed practically in most cases. Instructional training on those manual and controling wild animal to prevent contacting breeding stock were not performed in most facilities surveyed.