Queensland is looking to the USA and its handling of the 2014-15 outbreak of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) for lessons on how to manage a potential incident of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD).
Biosecurity Queensland’s Principal Biosecurity Officer Kevin Duff said the HPAI outbreak was the largest animal health incident in American history and saw the destruction and disposal of 48 million poultry and 2 million turkeys at hundreds of farms.
“If we ever have FMD here, we could also be looking at the destruction and disposal of tens or even hundreds of thousands of head of livestock and we need a plan to manage that quickly and effectively,” he said.
“It would be an enormous logistical undertaking involving large scale animal destruction, transportation and disposal activities and would be a real challenge for both government and industry.
“As we saw in the US disease incident, there are considerable challenges with disposing of animals in landfills in a way that does not lead to long-term environmental problems.”
Mr Duff said it was of great benefit to attend the recent International Symposium on ‘Managing Animal Mortalities, Products, By-Products & Risks’ in the USA.
“Over four days, the Symposium covered practical demonstrations, technical presentations, field visits, and a simulated emergency animal disease exercise,” he said.
“What I learned at the Symposium is that whatever plans we put in place, they have to be realistic, workable and tested.”
Mr Duff was also a member of the emergency disease response team in the UK during their 2001 FMD outbreak.
“It was extremely confronting and something I never want Australia to experience,” he said.
“The devastating impact was like nothing you can imagine. Families struggled to cope with the financial stress and trauma of experiencing large-scale stock losses. The effects flowed onto all parts of the community - suppliers, related industries and businesses in towns experienced incredible hardship or closed down.
“The good news for us is this disease is preventable with good farm biosecurity. This includes not feeding swill or food scraps to pigs, regularly inspecting livestock to identify potential disease problems, using veterinarians to investigate and manage animal health issues and actively managing farm inputs and outputs, including livestock, fodder, people, machinery and equipment.”
FMD a serious and highly contagious disease, which affects cloven-hoofed animals, including cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, deer, camels, llamas and alpacas. Horses are not affected.
The most likely way it would come into Australia is through iillegally imported foodstuffs, especially salted or cured meats, which are later fed to pigs as food scraps or swill.
Swill feeding is believed to be the cause of the devastating 2001 outbreak of FMD in the UK, where over six million animals were destroyed during eradication of the disease. FMD is the single greatest disease threat to Australia’s livestock industries. Mr Duff said given the impacts of FMD, it is critical that everyone, particularly those working with and or around livestock, can recognise the signs and know what to do if FMD is suspected.
“The disease causes blisters in the mouths and around the hooves of infected animals,” he said.
“Clinical signs include lameness and excessive salivation, reduced milk yield in dairy cattle and fever. It’s highly contagious, so livestock owners should regularly check their livestock and contact their veterinarian immediately if they notice clinical signs consistent with FMD.”
Suspected cases of FMD must be reported to Biosecurity Queensland on 13 25 23 or the Emergency Animal Disease Watch Hotline on 1800 675 888.
The Queensland Government has invested in a $2.5 million three-year Biosecurity Preparedness Program which includes online FMD awareness training.
You can access the online training course and find out more about FMD and the Queensland Biosecurity Preparedness Program at www.biosecurity.qld.gov.au/FMD
