Basic quarantine measures would have stopped horse flu in tracks

Even the most "rudimentary" quarantine measures would have stopped the spread of equine influenza last year, according to a damning submission by the counsel assisting Commissioner Ian Callinan in the final days of his inquiry into the devastating disease outbreak.

And counsel assisting, headed by Tony Meagher SC, has made it clear that blame for the outbreak lies squarely with the blokes at the top, insisting responsibility for a series of quarantine failures contributing to the spread of horse flu, ultimately rests with the secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF), the executive director of AQIS and the executive manager of quarantine within AQIS.

The findings are sure to trigger a suite of legal challenges for compensation for an industry which has lost billions of dollars in lost earnings because of the disease.

The submission, tabled last Thursday, summarises the hundreds of submissions made to the inquiry since it started in October and makes several embarrassing conclusions about the current state of quarantine procedures and governance which will have ramifications broader than just the Australian horse industry.

It says basic measures, like requiring people to shower before entering and exiting the horse quarantine facility at Eastern Creek, were not implemented and reflects failures "by those within DAFF and AQIS who were responsible for the management of quarantine risks".

The submission says the inquiry has revealed a number of other deficiencies and inadequacies in the biosecurity measures in place and the way those measures are formulated, reviewed, implemented and their implementation checked.

"Those various deficiencies and inadequacies operated, in some cases separately and certainly together, to increase the likelihood that a horse infected with equine influenza would be imported into Australia with the consequent risk that the virus could escape from PAQ (post-arrival quarantine) as in fact occurred in August 2007," it says.

Counsel assisting found there were no operating procedures or work instructions that had been prepared within AQIS which were understood by quarantine officers at the Eastern Creek quarantine station – where international horses later found to have carried the disease were first transported to.

It says a national live animal import program was not properly resourced or funded, and numerous pieces of evidence "bespeaks an organisation which lacked clear lines of effective communication between those responsible for formulating procedures and those responsible for implementing them".

Other contributing factors to the disease outbreak include the fact the quarantine station was under staffed, was not manned 24 hours a day and was closed on the weekends.

"Grooms, vets, caterers and cleaners had access cards to the main gate and/or keys to the gate to the equine facility," the submission says.

"Visitors including farriers and others entered and left the quarantine station and horse enclosure without the knowledge of AQIS officers, particularly out of hours and on the weekends."

The submission finished with a lengthy list of recommendations to strengthen quarantine procedures for imported horses, both in Australia and internationally.

The submission recommends a budget which enables full and proper staffing at quarantine stations and says Biosecurity Australia needs to review the entire process from pre-export to post-arrival quarantine arrangements.

Final hearings resume again in Sydney in early April, before Commissioner Callinan reports to Government by the end of the month.

SOURCE: Rural Press National News Service, Parliament House Bureau, Canberra.