Foot and Mouth Disease in Indonesia Raises International Concern

By Harry Siemens

With the help of Australia, Indonesia is taking steps to control a Foot and Mouth disease (FMD) outbreak in that country.

Swine Health Information Center associate director Dr. Megan Niederwerder said they had the FMD virus on the radar for global detection since May because of significant outbreaks, particularly in Indonesia where it infected about 500,000 animals mostly cattle but some pigs.

They deployed a strategic vaccine campaign to contain and reduce the FMD virus spread by vaccinating about 1.6 million livestock.

The Australian government stepped up to help their neighbours with the close geographic proximity between Indonesia and Australia. Australia announced support for Indonesia with approximately $10 million in biosecurity packages to assist in the response and also help prepare Australia for potential FMD outbreak and vaccination program. Australia also increased protection with strategies at the border and airports to help prevent the virus from jumping into Australia from Indonesia and focused on preparing for a potential incursion.

Dr. Niederwerder said thinking about FMD and the high stability of the FMD virus, it’s non-enveloped, and so it has high stability in the environment. It can survive well on fomites during meat production. Fomite transmission occurs when viruses or bacteria remain on surfaces and cause infections. This is different from transmission of disease from animal to animal or person to person, in the air, in infected water, or by touch.

With this major outbreak in Indonesia, the number of animals affected and the difficulty of containing the virus throughout the country increases the risk to the rest of the world until they get the FMD situation under control.

She said the vaccine campaign would reduce the impacts on the animals regarding clinical signs, virus replication, and environmental contamination.

“Hopefully it will control that outbreak to reduce the risk to the rest of the world and reduce the impact on the livestock in Indonesia,” said Dr. Niederwerder.

Vietnam has also temporarily halted using the African Swine Fever (ASF) vaccine due to pigs dying post-vaccination. The ARS USDA in the US developed and researched this vaccine and licensed it to the National Veterinary Medicine Joint Stock Company, NAVETCO.

They started producing the vaccine and inoculating pigs to protect them from ASF. But unfortunately, of