Lumpy skin disease could ‘hit Australia between the eyes’: WAFarmers president John Hassell

WAFarmers president John Hassell has warned cattle producers and governments against complacency as lumpy skin disease inches closer to Australian shores. LSD made headlines after it was confirmed in Indonesia last March, but the spotlight soon shifted following an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the archipelago nation in May. Both diseases are highly contagious and, if detected in Australia, could devastate the nation’s livestock industries. Mr Hassell said biosecurity would be a key focus of future discussions between WAFarmers and new WA Agriculture Minister Jackie Jarvis, with whom he recently met for the first time. “Biosecurity is obviously the big one. Lumpy skin disease is going to hit us between the eyes before we know where we are, and possibly foot-and-mouth disease too,” he said. “As long as we can get a vaccination program in — and the sooner the better — I think that will lessen the impact.” Mr Hassell made the comments after cases of LSD, which was first detected on Indonesia’s western island of Sumatra, were confirmed in Malang in the far east of Java in December. A month earlier, LSD was confirmed in Central Java after apparently skipping from Central Sumatra — more than 1000km to the north-west — over the provinces of South Sumatra and West Java. LSD is a viral infection of cattle and buffalo spread by biting insects which experts say could potentially be blown across the Timor Sea to Darwin on a monsoon. It has yet to be detected in Timor, which lies some 2150km to the east of Java and is separated by a handful of islands in the Indonesian provinces of West and East Nusa Tenggara. Nevertheless, the news LSD had reached East Java was concerning for Indonesian-based veterinarian and analyst Ross Ainsworth. “This now means that the cattle in Bali will be under threat in the coming months of the monsoon season when the prevailing winds will be blowing almost directly from Java to Bali,” Dr Ainsworth wrote in the latest edition of the Southeast Asian Beef Market Report. “Malang is less than 200km from the island of Bali as the crow flies or, in this case, as the insect flies. ” While LSD is most commonly spread by biting insects, it can also be spread via the movement of infected animals and contaminated equipment. “Some local observers suggest that the rapid spread through Java is more likely to be due to illegal animal movements on trucks rather than through insect transmission,” Dr Ainsworth said. “Official figures presented by the (Indonesian) government on December 3 state that 11,474 cases of LSD have now been confirmed across six provinces. This is probably an extremely conservative estimate.” Australia’s $15 billion cattle industry is on high alert against LSD, which causes painful skin lesions, decreased milk production, reproductive losses and in some cases death. An outbreak in Australia could affect cattle operations nationwide, shutting down access to boxed beef markets and causing the live trade to grind to a halt for the first time since the 2011 live export ban. The Albanese Government allocated $1.1 million in its latest budget to roll out vaccines for LSD and FMD in Indonesia, and create buffer zones around feedlots where Australian stock are being held. It forms part of a $14 million package to assist Indonesia, Timor-Leste and Papua New Guinea to respond to, and prevent, outbreaks of LSD and FMD.