In korea, burial is the most common method of disposing animal carcasses culled due to brucellosis infection. However, burial has many disadvantages such as shortage of appropriate burial sites, possibile pollution of ground water supply, and negative view of the public. In this study, we have reviewed 3 legal methods for disposing bovine carcasses, which are burial, incineration, and rendering. We also described the overall process, advantages and disadvantages, and required costs for each method. About 75% of bovine brucellosis outbreak farms had less than 3 reactors, and in our study, rendering required the least amount of cost for farms with a small number of reactors (1-3 heads). Our findings suggest that the use of rendering should be encouraged for farms with bovine brucellosis and other methods considered only if rendering is inappropriate.

The present study describes an investigation on an epidemic of Tuberculosis (TB) which has been occurred among dairy cattle farms in Jeongeup, Jeollabuk-do since 2007. The investigation was performed in three ways as follows: 1. Collecting information about bovine TB outbreaks using investigation reports, an on-the-spot and tracing-back investigations; 2. Analyzing the outbreak pattern; 3. Establishing hypothesis and performing statistical analysis on potential risk factors. In the early 2000s, TB outbreaks were sporadically reported in beef cattle, and only a small number (1~2) of reactors was confirmed in each of outbreak farms. The number of TB outbreaks has been suddenly increased from 2007, mainly in dairy cattle farms. And these outbreaks were temporarily clustered during the period, from March 2007 to April 2009 (relative risk, RR=13.7, p less than 0.001). And two spatial clusters of which radiuses were 0.3 km (RR=6.9, p less than 0.001) and 0.9 km (RR=3.6, p less than 0.01). The analysis to find risk factors was performed on 99 dairy farms (21 outbreaks), which are located in the most seriously affected village during 2007-2009. Middleman (odds ratio, OR=47.4, p less than 0.05) and raw milk collecting system (OR=6.9, p less than 0.05) were recognized as with the highest association. Considering the fact that all the outbreak farms except one had their own manure composting tank, it might be that the manure containing pathogen was leaked from tank and transmitted to other farms by fomites such as middleman or raw milk collecting system.