Vaccine about-face as containment fails

NEWS SOUTH WALES - In a welcome about face, the NSW Department of Primary Industries has given the green light for inactive vaccine usage beyond the so-called “buffer zones” in NSW as it becomes obvious that containment policies are failing. Vaccine for 44,000 horses will be made available today (Tuesday).

A case of Equine Influenza at Barmedman in Southern NSW illustrated the futility of “buffer zones” with movement of humans carrying EI believed to be the culprit in this case. With reports of EI at Wagga Wagga, it would seem to be only a matter of time before EI is discovered in Victoria.

“Securing this huge number of vaccines will enable us to conduct a broader vaccination program that will benefit all horse users in NSW and help us along the road to recovery,” said NSW Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald, adding that his government had wanted the inactive vaccine on a mass distribution basis in the first place.

“We have more than 34,000 horses infected in NSW,” he said. “I cannot stress enough the need for people to abide by the movement restrictions pertinent to their areas.”

Leading NSW equine veterinarians including Tim Roberts have slammed government authorities for not implementing a buffer zone policy more swiftly so that such a policy of containment might have been effective.

In an open letter, Roberts said containment policies were too late to be effective.

He noted that by the time officials brought in “vet training and registration” to begin vaccinating a region, it was too late and most horses would have begun recovery.

“This is incompetence at its highest level and the science has been thrown out the window,” Roberts said, adding that buffer zones were, “at best, a very poor attempt at containment” that would do nothing to eradicate EI.

Roberts, whose views are backed by other veterinarians, said suggestions that the number of EI outbreaks was declining was “ludicrous” and the virus itself was at least three days ahead of symptoms developing.

He said the DPI had prevented horse owners from vaccinating their horses and wanted them to continue biosecurity practices although no relief from the crisis was being offered.

“If DPI have not yet vaccinated all the horses in these buffers than they have achieved nothing,” Roberts said.

“ Buffer zones need saturation vaccination to be effective … the DPI appears to be paralyzed by incompetence at the highest level.

“The strategy of the DPI has no prospects of working and every prospect of causing irreparable damage to the horse industry,” he said.

Veterinarian Nick Kannegeiter said mismanagement of the EI crisis was “like watching a train crash in slow motion”.

In Queensland, reports of ad hoc horse movement are numerous, while in the Upper Hunter of NSW there has been criticism of lack of monitoring of vehicles in and out of a region rife with EI.

The mass vaccination program was announced following a meeting on Monday (October 8) where Racing NSW CEO Peter V'Landys and Australian Racing Board chief executive Andrew Harding addressed Primary Industries ministers from each state and territory, the federal Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Peter McGauran, and the director-generals of all state and federal Primary Industries departments on the need for a national mass vaccination strategy.

Tuesday, 9 October 2007
Bronwyn Farr

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