New Zealand is at heightened risk from foot-and-mouth disease because of infected and unvaccinated cows wandering close to tourist areas in Bali, according to an Australian vet based in the tourist hotspot.
The disease has been on the island for at least two weeks just as tourists start to return after the pandemic, according to Dr Ainsworth who has lived in Indonesia for the past decade.
He has worked in the Australian beef industry for 40 years and is concerned Bali's lack of vaccine doses and the way cattle wander in tourist areas there will heighten the risk of foot-and-mouth making its way to Australia and possibly New Zealand.
"This is such an amazingly infectious disease. It just goes like wildfire."
He said it had caused "absolute mayhem" on the bigger islands in the archipelago - Java and Sumatra.
Foot-and-mouth causes lesions on the foot making it difficult for animals to stand.
"It's so painful they must lie down. They can't eat so they just waste away."
He said there are a number of factors lining up to make the risk at its absolute worst.
"Firstly, with no vaccine the disease will be spreading fast and lots of animals will be shedding virus."
The Balinese love their cattle and they keep them in their backyard, walk them during the day to graze and bring them home at night, he said.
"So they walk them past your villa and there's plenty of opportunities for tourists to come across discharges from cattle, if not the cattle themselves."
He said pigs which are also common around the island shed the virus even more efficiently than cattle.
"We're in this very dangerous window before they're fully vaccinated and it might take six months or a year and of course tourists have just started to turn up in big numbers."
Dr Ainsworth said boosted inspections at the Australian border are not enough and disinfectant footbaths needed to be brought in to kill any organic matter on shoes.
The virus could last 48 hours or so on a shoe, enough time for a New Zealand tourist to bring it home even without direct flights between Indonesia and New Zealand at present, he said.
Bali had only 2000 doses of vaccine against foot-and-mouth for 600,000 head of cattle and 700,000 pigs, according to Dr Ainsworth.
He said most of the vaccinations had gone to dairy areas and some intensive beef areas in Java "so they're still scrambling to get vaccine from anywhere they can in the world".
Biosecurity New Zealand said while the risk to New Zealand was low, it had boosted efforts to protect farmers from foot-and-mouth including stepped up inspections at the border and providing more information for travellers.
New Zealand already has some of the toughest biosecurity measures against foot-and-mouth, Stuart Anderson, deputy director-general Biosecurity New Zealand said.
"Our frontline staff at the border are paying close attention to goods and any travellers arriving in the country with Indonesia as their point of departure and are stepping up our searches of baggage from countries of risk.
"There are currently no direct flights between Indonesia and New Zealand, which reduces risk.
"We are stepping up our work at the border with a campaign to ensure travellers do their part to protect farmers from foot-and-mouth disease (FMD)."
The authorities say they've issued reminders to the industry of the one week stand down period from the time that a person arrives from a country overseas with FMD, to the time that they go onto a New Zealand farm or have contact with susceptible animals in NZ.
This includes farm workers arriving from overseas through the approved border class exceptions.
Vets are also on the alert.
Biosecurity NZ said people concerned about their animals' health, especially if there are symptoms including high fever, mouth and feet blisters or erosions and lameness, should call their vet or MPI's exotic pest and disease hotline, 0800 80 99 66.
RNZ
