Foot and mouth task force ready
WELLINGTON: The Ministry for Primary Industries says a task force is ready to act if foot and mouth disease is confirmed here.
Indonesia’s government reported last week that more than 151,000 livestock had been infected by foot and mouth disease in 18 of the country’s 34 provinces, with the number of infected livestock growing quickly from 20,000 less than a month ago. Border officials in New Zealand and in Australia have been on alert since an outbreak of the disease was confirmed in Jawar Timur and Aceh provinces in Indonesia in early May.
Recently it has been confirmed in Bali.
The fear is that people returning from Indonesia will bring the disease back with them on their shoes, causing a widespread outbreak among clovenhooved animals such as cows, pigs, sheep, goats and deer.
If an infection was confirmed here, meat exports — which are worth billions of dollars to the economy annually — would come to a standstill.
Ministry for Primary Industries chief veterinary officer Dr Mary van Andel said a specialised task force had been established in case of an outbreak and it was busy planning for a range of scenarios.
‘‘What our workforce requirements would be, what type of planning we would need, what would our operational guidelines in the field would look like, what type of tactics we would use, what would we need to be doing for animal welfare, what would we need to be doing for farmer welfare?’’
She said due to the scale of the potential problem, MPI was working closely with other government agencies, industry partners and stakeholders.
If an outbreak was confirmed, a governmentwide response would kick in and any infected animals would be killed, she said.
There were telltale signs for farmers to watch out for, she said.
‘‘Animals that have foot and mouth disease will initially show fever, they’ll be drooling with lots of saliva coming out the mouth and they won’t be wanting to move around, so they’re lame and drooling and look very, very miserable indeed.
‘‘The reason that these are the clinical signs that you’ll see, is that foot and mouth disease causes fluidfilled blisters that have formed on the lips, the tongue, the palate and the coronary bands of the hoof, so that’s the little bit just above the hoof where the hoof joins the leg to the skin of the leg.
‘‘And they also happen on the teats of infected animals, so these blisters, after a couple of days, will burst and leave an ulcer and that can take 10 days or so to start to heal up.’’
She said if a farmer contacted MPI concerned their animals might be infected, they would be examined and tested within a matter of hours.
If a case was confirmed, contact tracing would begin immediately and livestock movements would be halted.
Meanwhile Biosecurity New Zealand was confident a recent slipup at the border involving a traveller returning from Bali was an isolated incident.
A farmer travelling from Bali via Melbourne a fortnight ago was deemed lowrisk when she arrived in Christchurch — and was not asked to go through additional open bag searches and footwear treatments.
Arrivals from Indonesia must have their bags checked and wash their shoes in disinfecting baths.
Deputy directorgeneral of biosecurity Stuart Anderson said that applied to all arrivals who had travelled to Indonesia in the past 30 days and she should have been properly checked.
‘‘The overall risk from Indonesia still remains low, but there are extra measures in place,’’ he said. — RNZ