FMD alert!

Agriculture Minister Damien O'Connor says Biosecurity NZ will now use foot mats with disinfecting chemicals fro people arriving from Indonesia to ensure their footwear is clean of the virus.

O'Connor says it's important that every New Zealander is vigilant and plays their part to protect New Zealand's economic security.

"I also strongly urge anyone who was in contact with livestock in Indonesia to stay away from farms and animals in NZ for one week.

"We also ask if anyone sees their pigs, goats, alpacas, llamas, cattle, sheep or deer with symptoms including high fever, mouth and feet blisters or erosions and lameness, to call their veterinarian or MPI's exotic pest and disease hotline (0800 80 99 66)," he says.

Federated Farmers biosecurity spokesman Wayne Langford says alarm bells will be ringing in Australia following the discovery last week of dead FMD fragments in Melbourne.

Langford told Dairy News that NZ farmers were in this with their Australian counterparts.

"If Australia gets it, there will be severe consequences for NZ," he says.

Langford says New Zealand farmers are rightly worried because "they know what effect FMD could have".

He urged farmers to be vigilant and ensure nobody arriving from Indonesia is allowed onto farms until they quarantine for seven to ten days.

Meanwhile Biosecurity NZ, which comes under MPI, says it's been in contact with the Australians about the viral fragments of FMD.

MPI Deputy Director General Stuart Anderson says he's been assured that what was found in the food was not live virus, but a trace viral fragment.

He says viral fragments are not infectious and could not transfer live virus to another animal. He says it's not unusual for non-infectious viral fragments to be found in food.

"There's no indication that there is a heightened risk to New Zealad. We have among the strictest import health standards and biosecurity settings in the world for pork and other meat products coming into New Zealand," he says.

But Anderson says as an extra precaution MPI will undertake market surveillance to double check product available here is legally imported.

He also points out that travellers to NZ are not allowed to bring in uncooked meat products.

"Since FMD was found in Indonesia recently, we have stepped up our work at the border to prevent FMD arriving in New Zealand. Every passenger arrival card is examined and those from countries that have FMD (including Indonesia) are directed to a different process of questioning, baggage search and disinfection.

"This means that should passengers transit other airports, risks are still addressed," he says.

Anderson says all mail products that come into NZ from Indonesia are x-rayed and checked by dogs. He says quarantine officers are also checking all cargo containers coming from Indonesia.

He says MPI is committed to constantly reassessing the multi-layered biosecurity settings as it has done in recent weeks with regard to FMD.

"Those settings include risk assessments of all arrivals and cargo, 100 per cent screening of all checked-in and cabin baggage, detector dogs and very strong import health standards," he says.

An outbreak of FMD in NZ would be the worst possible disaster for NZ, threatening all our meat exports worth billions of dollars.

In the past there have been several FMD scares, one of the most notable on a pig farm near Temuka in the South Island in 1981.

The disease was suspected and later it was found not to be FMD, but as a precaution all the pigs were slaughtered and cremated on the property.