Travellers greeted at airport with citric acid mats amid Foot and Mouth disease
Tough new health measures are making Sydney Airport wait times even worse. See how the changes will affect you on your next trip.
NSW
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Travellers returning from Indonesia are having to clean their shoes and wipe their feet on mats filled with citric acid to prevent an outbreak of foot and mouth disease across the country.
The launch of Australia’s largest biosecurity response is a timely and defensive boost for our agricultural industry as they face the catastrophic threat of major livestock loss if the disease breaks through the borders.
Trials of different mats and cleaning techniques have been implemented in Australian airports since last Friday, but passengers returning from Bali on Tuesday said everyone on their flights were being checked.
“We had to walk through this wet mat, it had a disinfectant smell,” Mr George said, as he returned from a Bali holiday with his girlfriend Grace Garrett.
Ms Garrett added: “Everyone from our flight had to walk through it.”
After walking through the mats, passengers had to answer a series of questions, like what areas they had visited in Bali and what activities they were doing, to determine whether or not they were at risk of carrying the disease.
If they were determined to be an at-risk traveller, their shoes would be further scrubbed and rinsed clean.
After his declaration, Eddy Pepper, who arrived home from a surf trip in Bali, said his shoes were quickly cleaned before being given back to him.
“I gave the shoes to them and now they’re wet, they put them in a bag for me (after they finished cleaning),” he said.
Other returning surfers were fine to walk through the mats without the requirement of further footwear cleansing based on their answers to authorities.
“They asked a few questions after we walked through the mats,” Reece Holbrow said, accompanied by his mate Jed O’Sullivan.
It's the first time biosecurity powers have been enforced since they were introduction in legislation seven years ago.
It comes as pressure is mounting on the federal government from the opposition to close Australia’s borders with Indonesia as the threat of FMD disease looms.
The federal government has repeatedly rejected calls to cease flights in and out of the region insisting strong security measures are in place to thwart the deadly disease.
Biosecurity measures have been amped up at airports across the country since the Indonesian government declared the outbreak in May.
The new mats are being rolled out in international airports in Australia in an attempt to prevent bringing the disease into the country.
Travellers have also been encouraged to throw out their kicks altogether as widespread transmission of foot and mouth disease among cattle could cost Australia’s livestock industry an estimated $80 billion.
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