The past few months have seen our attention shift toward emergency animal diseases, such as foot and mouth disease, being detected in neighbouring countries.
Diseases like FMD pose significant threats to our livestock industry but let's be clear from the outset - FMD has not been detected in Australia and the Australian government implements stringent biosecurity measures to ensure it stays that way.
However, with the FMD outbreak in our near neighbour Indonesia, the threat of disease outbreak is ever present.
The question on everyone's lips is "what would happen if an outbreak did occur"?
Australia is well prepared to combat disease threats, but we never rest on our laurels. We are all together continuously working to improve our preparedness and response systems to ensure they remain fit-for-purpose in combatting the continuing threats inching at our borders.
Animal Health Australia is an independent national animal health body that brings together government and industry to deliver animal health and biosecurity programs. Emergency animal disease preparedness is at the heart of what the organisation does and was the reason for its establishment more than 20 years ago, led by the leaders of the day across all governments and national livestock industries.
Animal Health Australia plays a key role in maintaining Australia's Emergency Animal Disease Response Agreement, which is known as the EADRA.
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The EADRA is envied by agriculture industries around the world. It is unique to Australia and is the cornerstone of the agreement between the commonwealth, state and territory governments and our livestock industries to protect our biosecurity system, including responding to emergency disease outbreaks.
The EADRA is well rehearsed. It has been tried and tested time and time again most recently in 2020 during the avian influenza outbreaks in Victoria, with a successful outcome of eradication being declared within only a few months, despite the additional challenges of COVID lockdowns.
It plays a key role in ensuring disease response arrangements are cost shared, mutually agreed by all affected parties, and most importantly, that decisions are made quickly. It is important to point out that the EADRA is not a compensation fund, however it does have guidelines around the sharing of costs between the affected parties during a response.
The EADRA is only used when a disease is present in Australia and a response is warranted.
Animal Health Australia also coordinates the production of Australia's Veterinary Emergency Plans, also known as AUSVETPLANs. These plans are nationally agreed guidelines developed for specific diseases and enterprises by technical experts from government and industry; an AUSVETPLAN is like a coach's game plan for tackling a disease response.
As with all game plans, they are based on the best evidence available at the time to combat a threat, but flexible enough for reactive modifications to be made. They are guidelines - and good ones at that - but they aren't a rule book. They are used by Governments to develop their own emergency response plans.
AUSVETPLANs waits in the wings, ready at a moment's notice. The plans are continually updated and tested regularly by our veterinary and technical experts across Australia.
Australia is well practiced in responding to both animal and plant diseases, and while the government, in collaboration with affected industries, is responsible for combatting disease threats, we need to remember that we should all be practicing strong biosecurity - ALL THE TIME.
A biosecurity plan is your deadlock - it keeps you safe knowing that prevention is better than a cure, and biosecurity is the best prevention you have! Not only do good biosecurity practices keep our farms safe by preventing emergency diseases, but they also help prevent endemic pests and diseases on a day-to-day basis.
In times of threat, it is crucial that all Australian livestock producers have a biosecurity plan in place.
Find information on this via the Farm Biosecurity website.
Sharon Starick is a Pork and Grains Producer from South Australia and is the current Chair of Animal Health Australia.
Kathleen Plowman is the CEO of Animal Health Australia and has been at the helm since 2014.
