African Swine Fever: New variant emerges in Australia

Reports of a new variant of African Swine Fever have emerged in Asia, despite a huge drop-off of international travel.

THE spread of African Swine Fever remains a threat to Australian agriculture, despite a drop in international passengers travelling to Australia due to COVID-19.

But reports are emerging of a new variant of the virus in parts of Asia.

A Department of Agriculture spokesman said about 76kg of pork products was intercepted at Australian airports in January this year, with no intercepts recorded on cruise travellers.

An additional 480kg of pork and pork-related products were intercepted via Australian mail facilities, the spokesman said.

From January 1 to February 11 this year, 15 infringement notices were issued to travellers for failing to declare pork or pork products, totalling $6,600.

The ongoing outbreak remains an issue in neighbouring Papua New Guinea, according to the Federal Government, with new cases detected in other locations near the original outbreak.

“There is no change to the threat to Australia’s biosecurity,” the spokesman said.

“The department continues to provide remote technical support to Papua New Guinea’s national agriculture quarantine and inspection authority’s response.”

Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said there were reports of new variants of the African Swine Fever virus emerging across Asia.

“Variants are showing less obvious signs of the disease which increases the likelihood of it

going undetected and uncontrolled,” Mr Littleproud said.

“With Lunar Chinese New Year celebrations approaching, more gift items arriving and

increased travel in the region, this is the perfect storm of risk. My department is aware of this developing situation and is pulling out all stops to ensure ASF does not arrive here, including interventions at the border, targeted operations to detect fraudulently labelled imported product, and conducting more testing of pork products seized through international mail.”

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