Taiwan's animal quarantine authorities reported Tuesday the country's latest confirmed case of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) , involving a pen of hogs at a meat market in Hsinchu County, northern Taiwan. Eight of the nine hogs in the pen were discovered July 13 to have blisters -- a symptom typical of FMD. The animals were immediately destroyed. According to officials at the Bureau of Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine (BAPHIQ), tests on specimens taken from the hogs confirmed that they had been infected with serotype O of the FMD virus. As the hogs had been enclosed overnight in the meat market, it was likely that the hogs were infected in the facility, according to the officials. The market was disinfected soon after the discovery of FMD, and further disinfection efforts will be carried out in the coming days when the market is not open for business, they said. They added that quarantine officials had already inspected the farm where the hogs were raised but no abnormalities were discovered there. The BAPHIQ, however, has restricted the movement of livestock within the farm and has collected specimens for further tests, the officials went on. Sporadic FMD cases have been reported on pig farms in several parts of the country since the start of this year. The cases have come just as Taiwan, which experienced a serious FMD outbreak in 1997, has been working toward the goal of being listed as a fully FMD-free country after having been recognized by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) as an 'FMD-free country with vaccination' thanks to its efforts to eliminate the disease over the past decade. 