In the winter of 2001, acrid plumes of smoke rose from the British countryside as millions of cows, sheep and pigs were incinerated in a desperate war against foot-and-mouth disease.
Warning: This story contains images and videos some people may find distressing.
As authorities scrambled to contain the devastating outbreak, people's movements were restricted and rural areas became no-go zones for city dwellers.
International trade in UK livestock meat and dairy products was suspended, a general election was delayed for the first time since World War II and major events in the countryside were cancelled.
The disease swung a wrecking ball through the UK economy, costing it around $13 billion and the loss of more than 6 million animals.
Australia has been free of the viral disease since the late 1800s, but it remains the livestock industry's most feared — and potentially most costly — biosecurity threat.
Now the recent discovery of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) in Indonesian cattle has the livestock industry on high alert, with Australian vets working tirelessly to help Indonesian authorities try to contain the outbreak.
But some producers have raised concerns about how Australia will cope if the highly contagious disease gets a foothold here, warning every household in the country would be affected.
What would happen?
An outbreak here would shut down Australia's meat export industry for at least one year, instantly wiping off $25 billion of export value, according to the Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment.
Studies have estimated $50 billion in economic losses over 10 years if a medium-to-large-scale FMD outbreak were to occur in Australia.
Australia's Chief Veterinary Officer, Dr Mark Schipp, said the national impact of an outbreak would be devastating.
"It would be suspended initially, because we would not be able to meet the certification requirements of our trading partners."
Dr Schipp recently summed up how devastating a local outbreak would be when he told Landline:
"And for that reason, we've been preparing for this eventuality for many years."
Every household would be affected
The effects of an outbreak in Australia would be felt across industries, from the cities to the regions, in every household in the country.
In 2002, a Productivity Commission report on the impact of a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak found consumers would change their eating habits and turn away from domestic red meat.
"The volume of meat products consumed [with the exception of chicken meat] is initially likely to fall," it said.
In regional communities, authorities expect significant social disruption and major mental health issues.
"Normal community activities may be affected by movement and biosecurity restriction and longer-term community cohesion may be impacted."
What is foot-and-mouth disease?
Foot-and-mouth disease does not pose a risk to human health, and it is a different virus from hand, foot and mouth disease, which can easily spread among children.
People can become infected with FMD, but only under "extremely rare" circumstances, and they would only experience mild symptoms, including blisters and a fever, according to the NSW Department of Primary Industries.
Livestock infected with the disease develop blisters around their noses, mouths and on their hooves, and while many animals recover from the sickness, their productivity can decline.
FMD spreads between animals on their breath, through contact with the blisters, and via infected milk, semen, faeces and urine.
However, the virus can also live on vehicle tyres, clothing and footwear, which is why concerns have been raised about travellers returning from parts of Indonesia to Australia recently.
The CSIRO's group leader in disease mitigation technologies in health and biosecurity, Wilna Vosloo, said biosecurity authorities had to keep a constant eye on how the virus was mutating.
"Foot-and-mouth disease has seven different serotypes, and each serotype can be seen as a separate foot-and-mouth disease, and each of those can have different variants," Dr Vosloo said.
UK outbreak was 'soul-destroying'
By the time FMD had been detected in the UK it was far too late to control it, according to the former National Farmers Union south-west UK director Anthony Gibson.
It emerged in February 2001 in an Essex piggery, right at the time on the UK farming calendar when large numbers of sheep were being moved around the country.
"So we were playing catch-up when the disease had probably been in the country for the best part of a month, before we knew it was in the south-west as well," Mr Gibson said
"That was what made the outbreak so difficult to control and so devastating in its consequences."
Caught on the hop, authorities in the UK adopted the 'slaughter-out' approach to controlling the virus.
"There were plumes of smoke all over the place, an awful acrid smell, and because of the way the disease was handled, thousands and thousands of animals were slaughtered trying to stop the spread of the disease, without anyone considering the logistics of moving their carcasses," Mr Gibson said.
In addition to the financial devastation, the methods used to fight the outbreak also left farmers psychologically damaged.
"To family farms in the west of England, the livestock are almost part of the family, and to have to watch them being slaughtered, when they didn't have the disease — this was precautionary — and then to have them lying around rotting in the farmyard for weeks on end was just soul-destroying," Mr Gibson said.
The UK's Chief Veterinary Officer, Professor Christine Middlemiss, was one of more than 2,000 vets working with farmers during the outbreak, and often had to deliver the heartbreaking news that their herds or flocks would have to be culled.
As the case numbers rose, Professor Middlemiss also worked at Great Horton, where at a nearby airfield animals were gathered en masse to be culled.
Lessons learned
At the top of the list of lessons learned for both Professor Middlemiss and Mr Gibson was the importance of clear and effective communication as the crisis rolled on.
Mr Gibson described the flow of information from authorities to farmers during the outbreak as "dreadful".
Professor Middlemiss was able to communicate that lesson to Australian farmers directly when she served as NSW Chief Vet in 2016 and 2017.
"I was asked at a foot-and-mouth exercise in Bega, 'What was the biggest learning I had from the whole experience?'," she said.
"And people think I'm going to say something really technology-focused, but it was communication.
"Communication at all levels is just so important, because the thing that gets people most anxious is not knowing what's going on."
Australia's plan
Were an outbreak to occur in Australia, the response would be led by the Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment and the relevant state agriculture departments.
The chief veterinary officer (CVO) in the state or territory in which the outbreak occurs is responsible for developing an Emergency Animal Disease Response Plan for the particular outbreak.
The response to FMD is laid out in a nationally agreed response strategy called AUSVETPLAN, which includes two options: to slaughter-out the disease, or control it with vaccinations.
State and territory biosecurity authorities routinely practise how they would enact these biosecurity plans.
The earliest parts of the plan, following confirmation of FMD, include a national livestock standstill, followed by contact tracing of animals that may have come into contact with the infected flock or herd.
The slaughter-out approach is the fastest way to eliminate the disease, but has a significant impact on livestock numbers.
However, the vaccination strategy would see Australia locked out of export markets for a longer period of time.
"If we are very confident that we have detected very early in the outbreak, the location of the outbreak, and that there has been no movement away from those areas, then it is likely that we would choose a slaughter option, because that would very quickly bring that outbreak to a close and very quickly return us to international trade," Dr Schipp said.
Australia maintains a bank of vaccines that can be rolled out if an outbreak occurs.
Australian scientists are not permitted to work with live FMD viral material, so much of that work is conducted overseas.
The CSIRO has been working closely with a laboratory in Thailand to look at how well the vaccines in the Australian stockpile would protect against the viruses circulating in south-east Asia.
And it has developed a tool for tracing the virus during an outbreak, using a similar method to the one employed to trace COVID-19 infections.
"We have an application that can help vets trace the virus between premises and look at the patterns of transmission, in near real-time," Dr Vosloo said.
"It can also consider how the climatic conditions can affect spread, by looking at wind direction, humidity and temperature, telling us whether it is probable the disease could spread from Farm A to Farm B on the wind."
Keeping it out
Australia's air and sea ports are considered to be the most likely pathways for entry of most biosecurity threats.
A group of experts led by Dr Schipp found Australia had a 42 per cent chance of a major animal biosecurity outbreak within the next four years, and a one-in-10 chance of a foot-and-mouth outbreak.
Every year authorities intercept tonnes of raw and processed meat and animal products that could potentially be carrying the disease.
"For that reason we have a large focus at airports on food items that people are bringing in, but also looking at things like clothing and footwear that's been worn on farms," Dr Schipp said.
"Other routes of concern are returning livestock vessels, so we're very stringent on ensuring they are clean before they come back to Australia.
For the past 12 years, the CSIRO has been working with laboratories overseas to keep tabs on what diseases are circulating in South East Asia.
And the Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness is also frequently receiving samples from around Australia, sent by vets who have observed animals showing FMD symptoms.
"These samples are sent to the lab for exclusion testing, so we can confirm that although the symptoms look like foot-and-mouth disease, they are not confirmed cases," Dr Vosloo said.
In addition, the CSIRO and DAWE have collaborated to develop a model for how the disease would spread through Australia if it did make it past the border.
"Recently we've been able to improve that model, to include post-outbreak surveillance which can speed up the time it takes to prove the virus has been eliminated."
Vigilance essential
Professor Middlemiss said Australian livestock producers had to remain vigilant as cases emerged in Indonesia.
"It really is the case that you potentially, on your farm, could have the first case. Work with the vets and the government — it can be a really worrying time if you're the first place that's got a disease," she said.
