Foot and mouth disease fragments detected in Aussie supermarkets

Popular supermarket products have been pulled from the shelves after traces of a devastating virus were detected during testing.

Viral fragments of foot and mouth disease have been detected in products for sale at Aussie supermarkets.

The fragments of the virus, which threaten to devastate Australia’s cattle industry, were found in pork products in Melbourne’s CBD.

The products had been imported from China, Agriculture Minister Murray Watt confirmed.

Fragments of African swine fever were also found in the products, detected as part of routine surveillance.

Senator Watt said it was the first time he was aware of foot and mouth disease fragments being detected in a retail setting. He said while there was no live threat from the disease, it was a reminder of how vigilant Australians needed to be.

“At one level, these detections are very disturbing, but on another level, they show our borders are strong and our systems are working,” he said.

“We have always said that animal product imports are actually the biggest risk of foot and mouth disease entering the country.

“There is a risk of it coming in from a traveller’s shoes, but the biggest risk is the importation of animal products.”

A concerned National Farmers Federation (NFF) called for the screening of 100 per cent of passengers returning from high-risk areas and increased resources for Australia’s biosecurity systems.

“The identification of FMD fragments in ‘pork floss’ in a retail setting in a major city is highly concerning. It is understood it can not be confirmed this product adequately complied with import requirements designed to address biosecurity risks,” NFF President Fiona Simson said.

“While our system worked by picking this up, we must throw the book at those responsible if it is found that requirements were deliberately subverted and review the relevant high-risk pathways for any other examples of non-compliance.”

Agriculture Minister Murray Watt met with his Indonesian counterpart Syahrul Yasin Limpo earlier this month to discuss the implications of Indonesia’s foot and mouth disease outbreak. Picture: Twitter / @MurrayWatt

Senator Watt said the products picked up at the Melbourne supermarkets “do not pose a threat to human health”, and Australia remained foot-and-mouth disease-free.

The ramping up of surveillance is one of the ways the agriculture department is seeking to stop the catastrophic disease from entering Australian soil and causing $80bn worth of damage to the economy.

Increased surveillance has been introduced at international airports, culminating in the discovery of foot and mouth fragments in an undeclared beef product.

“A passenger travelling from Indonesia has been seized with a beef product they didn’t declare that has tested positive for viral fragments,” Senator Watt said.

A foot and mouth disease outbreak has ripped through two Indonesian provinces since April, killing thousands of cows and infecting hundreds of thousands more. Picture: Perdiansyah / AFP

Senator Watt said there would be an investigation into both the undeclared beef product and the retail products, and prosecution would be sought if any offences had been committed.

“If you do the wrong thing, you will be caught,” he said.

Senator Watt announced sanitation food mats would be introduced in international airports in response to the Indonesian outbreak.

He said there was no biosecurity “silver bullet” and there needed to be a multi-layered approach to mitigate the risk.

“These sanitation mats will be a physical reminder to passengers to do the right thing to limit any spread of FMD and will be used in conjunction with our current measures, such as passenger declaration, 100 per cent profiling of all passengers entering from Indonesia, real-time risk assessments, questioning and show cleaning,” he said.

“We still encourage Australians to clean their shoes and clothing and even leave their footwear overseas if they can.”

The mats will be rolled out at all international airports, with Cairns and Darwin to receive theirs first.

Nationals leader David Littleproud has accused the federal government of being “asleep at the wheel” after fragments of foot in mouth disease virus were found in pork products in Melbourne.

“The agriculture minister (Murray Watt) has to get his head around this because he’s been asleep at the wheel,” Mr Littleproud told The Daily Telegraph.

Mr Littleproud also blasted the announcement that sanitized foot mats would be rolled out for travelers coming back from Indonesia as “too little, too late.”

“It took me less than 15 minutes with the Department to determine that this was required because dogs cannot detect the virus on the bottom of shoes.”

“This is an opportunity now for us to talk to Indonesia about implementing 3-D detection technology that can not only pick up shoes but organic material with AI technology we created in Australia.”

“A lot is at play here, there is an $80 billion agricultural industry at risk and Senator Watt needs to understand the severity of this and do his job,” he said.

Originally published as Foot and mouth disease fragments detected in Aussie supermarkets