MAF seeks animal disease-causing organisms

Agricultural officials will today asked an environmental regulator for wide-ranging approval to import bacteria and other organisms that cause animal diseases.

The requested matter includes bacteria causing serious animal illnesses, such as bluetongue, Q fever, haemorraghic diseases which animals can spread to humans, and porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome.

It also covers any viruses, fungi and protozoa that cause disease in animals.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) will also ask for specific approval for the import of 57 named viruses and other mico-organisms -- all to be held in containment at the National Centre for Emerging Diseases and Biosecurity at Wallaceville, Upper Hutt.

The disease-causing organisms will be used as a reference library to provide quicker and more secure tests in suspected disease outbreaks in New Zealand.

The Wallaceville complex, formerly the National Centre for Disease Investigation specialising in animal diseases, is taking on experts in human disease and epidemics so that it can prepare for bioterrorism, global epidemics, and incursions of new diseases.

But MAF, in submissions to be presented to a public meeting of the Environmental Risk Management Authority today, says it will not import foot-and-mouth disease, and that today's application will not cover high-risk life-threatening diseases such as the Ebola virus.

MAF initially applied for permission to import 24 organisms, including a "vaccine form" of anthrax and swine influenza, against which laboratory workers would have to be vaccinated to minimise the chance of infection.

But it later said it would not seek live infectious material for two transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) diseases -- mad cow disease found in cattle, and scrapie, found in sheep. This was because tests had been developed that did not require live organisms.

There is also a lack of scientific agreement in TSE diseases over whether prions causing the disease are organisms or simply pathogenic proteins.

MAF has already gained approval for melissococcus pluton, which causes European foulbrood disease in bees, but said it required a "pallet-load of paperwork".

- NZPA