BOGOTA, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos announced Tuesday that the foot-and-mouth disease outbreak detected a month ago was under control.
Writing on Twitter, the president said that the country would wait another 28 days to regain its "sanitary status and be a country free of the disease."
Speaking at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Agriculture Minister Aurelio Iragorri said the virus would be fully under control by Friday when the last contaminated livestock in the northwestern municipality of Caparrapi are set to be slaughtered.
Iragorri explained that, from the moment of this slaughter, the country must wait 28 days to send a statement to the World Organization for Animal Health, which will be tasked with declaring Colombia as a country free of foot-and-mouth disease.
"We hope to conclude this process and leave the (disease behind) next Friday, and then count the days to recover the sanitary status," said the minister, who has already resigned from the post but will remain in office until this crisis is over.
Iragorri added that, in the process of controlling the disease, over 3,000 cattle had been killed and that the disease had not spread beyond a limited number of towns.
