RI widens foot-mouth ban

RI widens foot-mouth ban

JAKARTA (Reuters): Indonesia has banned imports of meat and other animal products from Malaysia and Turkey over fears of the highly contagious foot-and-mouth disease, a senior agriculture ministry official said.

"We have banned all imports of animal products from Malaysia, starting July 9," Budi Tri Akoso, director of animal husbandry production, told Reuters late on Wednesday.

"The ban was based on a report from the OIE dated July 6 on outbreak of foot-and-mouth in Malaysia, especially in Kedah. The same ban also applied to products from Turkey," he added.

The OIE, Office International des Epizootioes, is also known as the World Animal Health Organisation.

But Akoso added Indonesia's imports of animal products from the two countries were very small.

Indonesia has imposed bans on products from Brazil, Argentina, Peru, France and the British Isles in recent months due to foot- and-mouth.

It has also banned grain imports from South America.

Indonesia was declared free of foot-and-mouth in 1990.