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Foot and mouth disease (FMD) poses a grave threat to cattle, sheep, and pigs, and its arrival in Australia could wreak havoc on the country’s livestock sector, which is valued at $80 billion.
This is because the disease is highly infectious, and the only way to stop the spread is to cull or slaughter millions of animals.
“Our main role is to scale up the vaccine and accelerate its journey from the lab to a local mass scale production,” he said.
“Because with an outbreak, you need 100,000 or even a million doses, not just a few dozen.
“But it’s not just about stopping disease. This is also about protecting livelihoods and keeping our own supermarket shelves stocked.”
Australia remains safeguarded from FMD thanks to stringent biosecurity measures, a key element in maintaining the high worth of the livestock industry, according to Thordarson.
Indonesia and the United Kingdom have infamously had outbreaks of the disease that crippled their livestock industries.
“The primary reason we have these markets is due to other countries avoiding beef from nations with disease outbreaks, as they aim to protect their own herds,” Thordarson explained.
“It took them [The UK] a while to stop it. And they had to stop it, essentially, by slaughtering millions of cows.”
