NEW prevalence areas for Ovine Johne’s Disease might not be implemented across Victoria, New South Wales and Western Australia until early next year.
At a Pfizer Animal Health OJD seminar at Hamilton, Vic, this week Department of Primary Industries district veterinary officer David Champness said rezoning of new prevalence areas might not be implemented until February 2011.
“It is more than likely later in the year or early next year.”
He said “the (implementation) decision has not been made yet” and he urged concerned producers to talk to the Sheepmeat Council of Australia, WoolProducers Australia or the state farming organisations.
Abattoir monitoring and testing data indicated that for the last two years the low prevalence area of Western Australia, the low and medium prevalence areas of Victoria and the low and medium prevalence areas of New South Wales had exceeded OJD infection cut-off limits and needed to be reviewed under OJD Management Plan business rules.
Dr Champness said changes to Victoria-to-South Australia interstate trading of sheep under the review also “had not been ticked off yet”.
“As time goes on it is being delayed a little bit more because South Australia is a bit edgy about where they were going to buy their replacement sheep if they push to have Victorian prevalence areas demoted too much.
“But they will be – the current medium prevalence area (in Victoria), it is speculated that it will go to a high prevalence area, which means the Southern Grampians Shire will have 0 points rather than two points on the scheme.
“Glenelg Shire, West Wimmera and the north-west shires - it is proposed they will go to a medium prevalence; they are currently low prevalence,” he said.
A Sheepmeat Council of Australia spokeswoman said SCA and Wool Producers Australia had consulted with state farming organisations and state departments on whether the areas be downgraded to meet the agreed prevalence cut-off limits or the prevalence area boundaries changed to meet the agreed prevalence cut-off limits.
“The proposed changes were provided to (Animal Health Australia’s) Animal Health Committee and have been endorsed.
“The prevalence maps are in the final stages of development and the implementation date will soon be announced,” the spokeswoman said.
Dr Champness said the Animal Health Australia’s OJD prevalence map for Victoria was “very biased” due to how the figures were obtained.
“A lot of that data came out of inspections at the Ararat abattoir and because they are going to be drawing from a known high-prevalence or medium-prevalence area of course the figures are going to be skewed.”
Dr Champness said some of the north-west shires showing up as medium prevalence “probably only had eight flocks that were affected and two of those came up positive”.
“To a certain extent some of the data seems to be skewed, but it certainly shows an ever-increasing trend of more OJD in Victoria and parts of New South Wales and Western Australia,” he said.
“So I guess the message is if you are in a risk area certainly vaccinate with Gudair – if you get 400 millimetres of rainfall a year you are at risk.”
Though he said after the seminar some areas in Gippsland were listed as having neglible prevalence on the AHA prevalence map for Victoria.
“That’s because there were no sheep inspected over that way,” Dr Champness said.
“You’ve got shires there that it might show that it is 25 per cent prevalence on the data but there might have been only eight lines of sheep inspected and two of those show positive.
“Other areas might be sending sheep to another abattoir that doesn’t have OJD inspection,” he said.
“So you’ve got to look at the big area and not drilling down to specific shires.”
He said there would be arguments “wherever you draw a line” and “we saw that in New South Wales”.
He said DPI’s biggest concern was the prevalence area review might restrict trade into South Australia for a lot of north-west producers unable to gain assurance points by abattoir or surveillance testing.
“They will need an extra two points to get into South Australia, they are going to be very limited.”
Dr Champness said there “a fair chance” the current vaccine subsidies for infected properties could change as part of the prevalence area review.
“Once again when the prevalence areas changes, if they go ahead they way they are talking, with most of Victoria having 0 ABC points as a high prevalence then every property will be on a level playing field whether you are infected or your neighbour is not infected.”
The vaccine subsidies would be reassessed by the Sheep and Goat Compensation Advisory Committee, he said.
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