TOKYO, Jan. 25 — As tourists from the Asian region including China are set to increase during the Lunar New Year holidays, the Animal Quarantine Service and the Plant Protection Station of Japan’s agriculture ministry launched a campaign at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport on Jan. 24 to prevent entries of animal and plant diseases such as African swine fever and fire blight.
Officers handed to foreign visitors and others some 550 pocket tissues containing flyers saying that people entering Japan are banned from bringing meat products and that there are plants which cannot be brought in to the country and plants which require a phytosanitary certificate to import.
African swine fever has been spreading in countries like China and South Korea. Meanwhile, on Jan. 11, the first cases of foot-and-mouth disease since 1988 have been detected among German cattle, prompting the ministry to increase vigilance also against flights arriving from Germany.
Fire blight and Oriental fruit fly species complex that cause massive damage to fruit trees have continued to be found in China.
“It is necessary to make people aware of the possibility that they could bring in diseases and that will lead to strengthening of border control measures,” said an official of the Animal Quarantine Service’s Haneda Airport branch.
An officer hands out pocket tissues with flyers on animal and plant quarantine promotion campaign at Tokyo’s Haneda Airport.