Australian cattle products safe: Official

JAKARTA (JP): The Ministry of Agriculture, which on March 10 imposed a ban on Australian beef imports because of anthrax, assured yesterday that all Australian cattle products currently on sale in Indonesia were healthy.

"Consumers should not necessarily be reluctant to eat imported beef," Director for Animal Health Sofyan Soedardjat said in response to public fears about Australian meat.

He said imported beef and cattle products were scrutinized thoroughly before being sold domestically.

He also assured that all cattle infected by anthrax, a contagious disease attacking cattle, would die in 48 hours. Furthermore, anthrax bacteria died when meat was well cooked, he said.

He said that cattle, before being exported, were usually kept in quarantine for 10 to 14 days for vaccinations even if there were no import bans.

Australia has extensively checked all its meat and cattle since the first anthrax outbreak in January in the state of Victoria, he said.

Sofyan said all vaccinated cattle needed 40 days before being ready for slaughter.

After receiving a report on March 8 on the outbreak of anthrax in the Australian states of New South Wales and Victoria, the ministry announced the ban on imports of meat and cattle products from those states.

Sofyan said the ministry immediately checked all imported meat after receiving the report. "We rejected then all imported meat with any clinical indication," he said.

The director general of animal husbandry, Erwin Soetirto, said importers could resume buying cattle and cattle products from both Australian states 21 days after the last outbreak of anthrax was reported. The last outbreak was found in Victoria on March 13.

Sofyan said a further decision would be made on April 3 or April 4 when the ban expired. But if there was another outbreak, the ban would be automatically extended.

The ban included other cattle products like leather, milk and bone.

Indonesia imported 76.4 million kilograms of cattle imports from Australia in 1995 and 101 million kilograms in the first 11 months of last year.

About 30 percent of Indonesia's imports of cattle and cattle products from Australia are from Victoria and New South Wales. (10)