Foot and mouth disease Australia

Experts say these are the next big threats you need to know about — and some of them are already here. a mosquito. Japanese encephalitis virus is spread by ...

The union said it was calling for a federal audit of staffing and workloads. "If it was to make it to the mainland and infect susceptible species, then we would see a lockdown of livestock populations," he said. The analysis also found there was a one in five chance of an African swine fever outbreak, and an eight per cent probability of a lumpy skin disease outbreak. Dr Mahony said the impact would be devastating if any of the diseases were to take hold in Australia. "We saw that in the pandemic, when abattoirs were unable to process animals, then you had shortages of meat in our supermarkets." University of Queensland professor Tim Mahony said it was one of the "clear and present dangers" for Australia's agriculture industry. Australian Pork, the industry's peak body, said the most significant threat in terms of the transmission of the virus was illegally imported pork products, which could be fed as swill to domestic pigs and infect feral populations. He said if the disease got into a piggery, it was likely the pigs there would have to be killed. Originally limited to Africa, the disease has spread to China and South-East Asia, with cases being confirmed on the Indonesian island of Sumatra in March 2022. "We're coming up now into the warmer part of the year and that will then promote the likelihood of mosquitoes breeding," he said. "It causes all sorts of things, like mummified piglets when they are born, neurological diseases in the pigs in their first year of life," he said. JEV was first documented in Japan in 1871 and has since become endemic to South-East Asia and the Western Pacific.

Australia's top vet has offered a prediction on the “danger period” of a deadly virus that could devastate the agriculture industry.

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Australia's chief veterinary officer, Dr Mark Schipp, says closing the borders isn't currently warranted but “we review that almost on a daily basis”. “ ...

Contact with animals like giraffes, elephants and kangaroos will be limited at zoos in Victoria as concern about a potential foot-and-mouth disease outbreak ...

"If we can help mitigate the risk of potential disease in Australia, these are the steps we are keen to address." The message said the measures were intended to lower the risk of animals coming into contact with "soil that could have potentially been brought in from outside the zoo grounds". Last night Zoos Victoria, which runs the Melbourne and Werribee zoos and Healesville Sanctuary, sent a message to members announcing the elephant enclosure's public pathway would be closed out of an "abundance of caution".

The zoo's giraffe, kangaroo, and elephant animal encounters are also temporarily unavailable. Melbourne Zoo changes protocols to protect animals from potential ...

“As we have said all along, we believe the greater risk of (foot and mouth disease) getting into Australia is via incorrectly or illegally labelled meat products from overseas,” he said in a statement. The zoo said that the risk of transmission to its animals was extremely low, but it was announcing a series of protocol changes. There have been no domestic outbreaks reported as yet and Australia’s borders are remaining open, despite a push by the opposition to close them.

It advises that all giraffe, kangaroo and elephant animal encounters will not be available at the moment. An area of Melbourne Zoo has also been blocked off to ...

Zoos Victoria CEO Dr Jenny Gray said the measures had been brought in out of "an abundance of caution" to protect the animals. The email also requests certain people avoid visiting zoos at the moment. People who have livestock and who have recently returned from Indonesia are also being asked to stay away from the zoos amid fears the disease could spread in Australia.