South Korea will spend $2.61 million in the next four years to help fight foot-and-mouth disease in Southeast Asian countries, a main source of the disease that affects hoofed animals, including cows and pigs, the government said Monday.

Under a joint prevention program with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the money will help set up disease prevention and control systems in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, according to the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries.

The move comes after South Korea’s most recent FMD outbreak, reported late last year, was thought to have originated from Southeast Asia, where the disease is rampant. 

(Yonhap News)