No need to fear Aussie meat over anthrax, official says
No need to fear Aussie meat over anthrax, official says
SYDNEY, Australia (AP): Indonesia was too hasty in banning
beef and cattle imports from Australia because of anthrax as any
outbreaks were under control, New South Wales' state Agriculture
Department said yesterday.
Indonesia halted imports from New South Wales and Victoria on
March 10, citing anthrax disease in cattle in both states.
Asian food buyers are particularly sensitive since Britain has
been rocked by the "mad cow disease" scare.
But the head of the New South Wales Agriculture Department's
animal industries division, Helen Scott-Orr, said New South Wales
should not be included in the ban as reports of anthrax were
normal and decreasing.
"In fact, our incidence this year has been on the lower side
of what our normal incidence has been," she told Australian
Broadcasting Corp. radio.
"So it's not as if there's any greater risk whatsoever to the
Indonesians than there was in the past.
"Each year we would have anywhere between five and 20
outbreaks but essentially they have been diminishing each year.
"Obviously (Indonesia) feels because of the high incidence in
Victoria, it has aroused their awareness and they have looked to
see where anthrax occurred in Australia and they have thrown the
net rather wider than we think necessary."
From January through March some 150 cattle died on Victoria
farms before anthrax was contained through quarantines and
inoculation.
More than 80 Victoria farms lost cattle to the disease and
more than 77,300 heads of cattle were vaccinated.
There had been outbreaks of the disease on six isolated New
South Wales farms this year, Scott-Orr said.
Anthrax is a highly infectious cattle disease that leads to
ulcerating nodules, lesions in the lungs and blood poisoning. It
can also be transmitted to humans handling the infected products.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported yesterday that Australia's
US$2.7 billion (A$3.5 billion) red meat and livestock export
industries are worried about a possible loss of access to
lucrative Asian markets after an apparent breakdown between
government agencies in reporting recent anthrax infections in New
South Wales.
The Herald said Federal Primary Industries Minister John
Anderson had spearheaded efforts to satisfy concerns on the part
of Australia's major trading partners over Australia's anthrax
quarantine effectiveness after the recent outbreak in Victoria.
A spokesman for Anderson told the paper that Australia always
notified its trading partners of any anthrax outbreak, but so far
there had been no contact about New South Wales infections.