As stated by the Council of Agriculture, nearly 1,000 pigs were spotted with blisters in their mouth at the County’s meat market on Tuesday. This is probably known as a symptom of foot-and-mouth disease. Therefore to put a control, all these pigs have been culled in the offshore county of Penghu.

Immediately after the discovery, managers at the market in order to contain the outbreak, at once slaughtered all 30 pigs locked in the same compartment of the truck. These 30 pigs were the first infected animals and disinfected the market's holding pens and equipment.

Following this, a suspension of meat market trade and a ban on the movement of cloven-hoofed animals was announced throughout the county by its government. The investigation for determining the cause of this outbreak is still pending and the symptoms of this disease appear within 24 hours from the time of contraction, so a closure on the trade was a feasible action.

According to Huang Kuo-ching, Deputy Director of COA's Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine when for the first time, the samples of ailing pigs were tested it was found that these pigs were infected with an O-type FMD virus.