Keeping the Risk off-shore - Here we take a look at what biosecurity plans Australia has in place to safeguard against overseas risks and in particular to help against Asian foot and mouth disease (FMD). David Wilson, Coordinator of AUSVETPLAN, Animal Health Australia tells us more.

Also an insight into the challenges facing UK farmers with the latest Bluetongue outbreak and the associated economic implications

Keeping the risks off-shore...Did you know?
Australia established the Northern Australia Quarantine Strategy program (NAQS) in 1989 to help address the unique quarantine hazards presented by countries to Australia’s north. The NAQS program conducts surveys along our northern coastline and in neighbouring countries, for early signs of new pests or diseases that may threaten Australia. The program operates along Australia’s northern coastline from Broome in the west to Cairns in the East, including the Torres Strait, and in Australia’s nearest northern neighbours: Indonesia, Timor Leste and Papua New Guinea.

Australia has been directly involved in the control of FMD in Southeast Asia since the first meeting of the OIE sub-commission for the control of FMD in Southeast Asia in Bangkok in February 1995. The OIE Regional Coordination Unit in Bangkok was established in 1997 and is responsible for coordinating the Southeast Asia Foot and Mouth Disease Campaign (SEAFMD). This campaign involves the coordinated control of foot and mouth disease by eight countries in the ASEAN region (Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam) and is funded mainly through the Australian Government's overseas aid program, administered by AusAID, with support from New Zealand, the EU and Japan. ASEAN is now assuming greater responsibility in the management of the campaign.

The immediate objective of the campaign was to improve the standards of veterinary services in FMD-affected countries in Southeast Asia, and to build the information base necessary to develop a regional control strategy for FMD. The intermediate objectives were to improve the productivity of animals by keeping FMD under control and so increase the income of livestock producers in the participating countries. The long-term objective is to facilitate and promote the international trade of animals and animal products from the region by achieving FMD freedom with vaccination in Southeast Asia by 2020.

UK Bluetongue Outbreak Widens
Since the United Kingdom’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (defra) confirmed that Bluetongue disease was circulating between the local animal and midge population in East Anglia last September, the disease has now spread to other parts of south & south east England and into Wales.

The disease, caused by a virus spread by midges, affects ruminants but not pigs, horses or humans and meteorologists say it reached Britain when infected midges were carried by warm easterly winds across the channel.

Defra has established a Bluetongue protection zone with a total of 1,600,000 farm animals are now within the protection zones.

Pre-movement testing from these zones and the wider surveillance zones, together with discoveries of the virus in some imported animals, means that a total of 101 premises are under restrictions and includes a single property in Wales, where a Texel sheep imported from Holland was slaughtered after testing positive.

The case was a mystery as the animal had also been tested in Holland and quarantined for two weeks before being transported to the farm, on the border of West Wales, in February.

If the disease resurfaces this year as the warmer weather approaches and midges become more active, the fight to control it will enter a new phase.

Potentially Bluetongue could have far wider reaching economic implications than foot and mouth, as it will only take a single bite from one of over a possible trillion infected midges for the disease to spread.