Shakeup urged to meet threat of disease outbreak

New Zealand's response and surveillance networks would probably fail in the event of a major disease outbreak, says a senior epidemiologist specialising in animal populations.

Massey University's Epicentre director, Professor Roger Morris, told the southern North Island sheep and beef cattle farmers conference that unless the agriculture industry and the Government came to an agreement, such an outbreak could be disastrous.

"We need an agreed response and a prompt response," he told more than 150 farmers at the conference.

The Epicentre is Australasia's largest epidemiology training and research centre.

It specialises in understanding diseases in animals and the methods for controlling them.

New Zealand is more reliant on the success of its agricultural sector and its export industries than any other developed trading nation.

Morris said that being aware of the risks to that livelihood was essential to avoid being wiped out economically.

It was not a matter of whether a disease would arrive in New Zealand, but of which one and when.

The country had some of the world's best border control systems and was relatively well prepared.

But the greatest danger could be from those illnesses of which many people were unaware, such as Johnes disease in dairy cows, which could affect people.

Morris said the biggest risks were from smuggling and trade, rather than tourists.

Border controls had not stopped New Zealand from gaining many new diseases in plants and animals in the past 10 years.

The weakest area of protection was in disease surveillance, he said.

The country's response systems were among the world's best. But not enough had been invested in them and they would struggle to cope with a major exotic disease, especially if it lasted for several months.

Proving the country was free from a particular disease, whether there had been an outbreak or merely the appearance of one, would also be more costly than most people realised because of the amount of testing that would be needed.

Laboratory resources would be stretched to breaking point.

Another risk was biotechnology, which offered new avenues for expanding markets but provided openings for scaremongering over issues such as the use of pig cells in people to combat diabetes, said Morris.

Other threats were from known diseases such as foot and mouth, food-borne illness, emerging sicknesses such as BSE, chemical contamination, bioterrorism and even rumours of hazards.

Despite its weaknesses, New Zealand would cope better than most countries, although probably not well enough.

Depending on the nature and size of a particular outbreak, the number of sites involved and the speed of any response, the disease would either be under control quickly and effectively, or there could be a battle for months or years.

Morris predicted that in the next 20 years, New Zealand would have a food safety or animal health incident that would jeopardise the success of its livestock industry.

"I just can't tell you which of the various types of events it will be."

New Zealand could expand its market access internationally by developing a leadership role and demonstrating a political will to prevent disease rather than merely responding to a crisis.

"That's been a major deficiency overseas."

Morris said the key to reducing the impact of any outbreak lay in a rapid response.

"You have to be tough in the first one to two weeks and kill disproportionately," he said.

New diseases were emerging all the time but the public heard about only a select few.

The best way to reduce risk was to develop an approach to detect and manage threats.

- NZPA