Foot and mouth on the march in Indonesia

The disease poses the biggest threat to Australia’s $70bn a year meat and livestock industry in decades.

Checking for foot and mouth diseases in South Korea in 2010. Picture: AFP

An outbreak of foot and mouth disease spreading rapidly across Indonesia poses the biggest threat to Australia’s $70bn-a-year meat and livestock industry in decades.

Indonesia reported its first cases since 1986 of the highly contagious disease among cattle in East Java a week ago, but it has since spread across Java island and into Aceh, north Sumatra, south Kalimantan and Bangka Belitung.

Authorities are working to determine the strain of the disease the government has suggested might have been brought in through illegal cattle imports, but which the industry blames on a decision last year to allow beef imports from India and ­Brazil, which have not eradicated the FMD virus.

The outbreak comes as Australia’s near neighbour is already struggling to contain the emergence in March of lumpy skin disease in livestock – a virus that can be spread by insects and so is even more difficult to keep out of Australia than FMD.

Australian modelling a decade ago estimated an outbreak of foot and mouth disease would cost one of its most important ­export industries at least $50bn.

“Straight away we would lose our ‘freedom of disease’ status, which would stop our export trade in its tracks,” Australian Veterinary Association cattle president Tracy Sullivan told The Australian. “It would also stop our domestic market ­because infected cattle would have to be slaughtered.”

Humans cannot contract FMD from eating infected meat but they can from drinking infected milk, so the industry would also need to begin vaccinating cattle against the disease.

Australian cattle producers cannot pre-emptively vaccinate without also triggering a suspension of the country’s “freedom of disease” status.

“Lumpy skin disease has been the biggest threat the industry has faced in years but foot and mouth disease would be the worst disease that could enter as far as the Australian industry goes,” Dr Sullivan said. “Lumpy skin disease has a higher chance of entering at this time because it can just fly in on insects, whereas with FMD the virus has to physically come in” – most likely inadvertently carried in on the shoes of someone returning from ­Indonesia, or by boats.

Indonesian cattle industry consultant Robi Agustiar, who is working with Australian producers to establish a domestic industry, said the government should have been better prepared to curb the spread of the highly contagious virus after more than two years dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic.

“But, in reality, government policy is still not fast enough compared to the speed at which this virus is spreading. Days ago, the virus was only found in three ­regencies and now it has spread in many more provinces,” he said.

Indonesian Agriculture Minister Syahrul Yasin Limpo said last week the government had formed a crisis response taskforce and implemented red, yellow and green zones to prevent infected cattle from entering ­regions that were still free from the virus.

“We need to be vigilant and move quickly to deal with FMD so that we will not cause social panic. We must intensify the distribution of drugs and vaccines, so that everything can be safe and the FMD cases decline,” he said on Thursday.

Mr Limpo said the government was preparing to import vaccines but first needed to determine which strains of the virus were spreading in Indonesia.

The agriculture ministry has conceded the disease could cause significant economic losses to Indonesia’s growing cattle industry.

Mr Agustiar said industry players had warned for years that Indonesia must anticipate the potential spread of FMD, and had even the mounted a ­Supreme Court challenge against the decision to allow beef imports from India and Brazil.

“Even if the government does not want to be blamed for importing meat from India and Brazil, they are still at fault ­because it means their quarantine policy failed,” he said.