FMD test to lower slaughter
From the March 2009 edition of Agriculture Today.
Recently developed tests for foot and mouth disease will in future overcome on-farm slaughtering of animals that show clinical signs without confirmation of infection.
Scientists at the Institute for Animal Health (IAH) in the United Kingdom have shown that up to 23 per cent of farms diagnosed in the 2001 outbreak there did not have the disease.
At the time, government policy was to slaughter susceptible livestock on a farm within 24 hours of diagnosis by veterinarians.
The vets made their diagnosis on the basis of animals showing clinical signs.
Samples were sent to the laboratory for testing, but the time required getting them to the lab and testing them meant that often animals had been killed before the test results were known.
During the UK outbreak, some 2000 farms were infected by the virus and 6.5 million animals were slaughtered.
The IAH has been working on some diagnostic tests that can be done on farm.
One test detects the protein coat of the virus, whilst a second detects the genetic material of the virus.
Both are at the prototype stage.
Currently the protein test is successful 80pc of the time.
Lots of animals could be tested quickly and if there were any positives, a diagnosis could be made on site.
If there were fresh lesions on the animals, the vet could expect to get a positive result from the test.
These tests would be a great tool in controlling future outbreaks of this disease.
The Australian Government estimates that the cost of a worst-case Australian FMD outbreak would be between eight billion and thirteen billion dollars of gross domestic product.
Since the UK outbreak in 2001, Australia has committed to invest more than half a billion dollars to prepare for and manage the foot and mouth disease threat.
