Australian tourists on holiday in Bali risk taking home a highly contagious virus that would totally devastate Australia’s multimillion-dollar livestock industry.
After decades of being free of foot-and-mouth disease, in May the deadly virus returned to Indonesia and has now reached the Bali holiday spot.
Matt Dalgleish, an agricultural analyst at Thomas Elder Markets, said the hundreds of thousands of Australians expected to visit Bali in the coming months are now a major threat to unwanted biosecurity.
Foot-and-mouth disease is a contagious virus with serious consequences for the health and trade of animals. (New / Christopher Lorrimer)
“The biggest fear with Bali and foot-and-mouth disease is just the large number of tourists,” he told 9news.com.au.
Dalgleish said tourists with infected footwear or clothing can easily carry the virus home and warned that Australian airports should be on high alert.
A single case detected anywhere in Australia would immediately lead to a national ban on all movement of cows, sheep, pigs and goats, he said.
Exports to the world will also close, he said, including the turn of any ship destined for international markets.
“The cost estimate reaches $ 100 billion,” Dalgleish said, calculating the level of long-term damage that could be inflicted on farmers and the economy.
“We immediately lose access to our export markets until we can prove that we have isolated the incident and made sure we have it under control and that it has been eradicated.”
That, Dalgleish said, could take months or even years.
An outbreak of the disease in 2001 cost the United Kingdom about $ 13 billion and resulted in the systemic slaughter of more than 6 million cattle.
Australia has had no cases since the 1870s, but the risk of this long period ending has never been greater, with more than 230,000 confirmed cases in Indonesia and now 63 in Bali.
Foot-and-mouth disease is much more difficult to trace among sheep populations, compared to cattle, because they are not marked in the same way. (New / Peter Morris) Tourists line up at the exit gate of Bali Airport in Denpasar. (AP)
Biosafety officers at all Australian airports are stepping up surveillance on all flights from Bali and Indonesia, the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry said.
More than 128,000 Australian passport holders traveled to Bali in June, the Australian Border Force confirmed at 9news.com.au.
“These are many points of contact for Australian tourists who return them to clothing or footwear,” Dalgleish said.
“It can be carried quite easily with a little mud in the boots.
“That’s a concern, it’s highly infectious.”
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Biosecurity detection dogs are being put to work at Darwin and Cairns airports to detect the disease, and the mail and packages that arrive will be examined more closely.
“It is crucial that all travelers returning to Australia from areas affected by foot-and-mouth disease follow the biosecurity instructions we have at the border,” said Agriculture Minister Murray Watt.
During his recent visit to Indonesia, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese pledged vaccines and Australian technical expertise for the outbreak. An outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease that has hit Bali could threaten the entire Australian livestock industry. (SMH / Louise Kennerley)
Another viral plague, known as nodular skin disease (LSD), has also recently been detected in Bali, but stopping it in Australia will be even harder than foot-and-mouth disease, Dalgleish said.
LSD is carried by mosquitoes and other stinging insects and only affects livestock.
Dalgleish said massive storms can fly infected insects through Bali and northern Queensland and parts of the Northern Territory and Western Australia.
“You can’t stop the onslaught of an insect coming in through the wind,” he said.
“I think the risk factors for getting lumpy skin are higher than foot and mouth disease.”
Node skin disease would not cause the same level of damage to the industry as foot-and-mouth disease, Dalgleish said, but it would still be very problematic, especially for export markets.