Curbing Foot-And-Mouth Disease

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31030, 9 April 1966, Page 3

Curbing Foot-And-Mouth Disease

(N.Z. Press Association) HAMILTON, April 8. Three veterinary officers of the Agriculture Department returned from Thailand more convinced than ever of the importance of keeping foot-and-mouth disease out of New Zealand. They are Messrs P. Gallagher and E. Brookbanks, of Hamilton, and Mr P. Davenport, of Pukekohe.

Foot-and-mouth disease was prevalent in most of Thailand,

said Mr Gallagher today. However, the small southern part of the country was free of the disease and elaborate precautions were being taken to see it remained so. Constant supervision was exercised and a buffer zone of vaccinated animals had been established between the north and south. Exports of livestock to Malaysia were allowed from the disease-free south but not from the north, thus the country was losing heavily because of reduced exports. New Zealand also would lose heavily if the disease penetrated the country. The veterinarians’ knowledge, accumulated in Thailand, would be valuable if an outbreak occurred. The veterinarians spent a month in a Thai laboratory where vaccine production experiments were done in the

campaign against Thailand’s major diseases. A second month was spent inspecting outbreaks of the disease, quarantine and control measures, and animal production and husbandry. Mr Gallagher said anyone who had seen the stringent restrictions necessary in a country with foot-and-mouth disease would not object to the precautions taken with returning travellers at New Zealand sea and airports.