Foot-and-mouth disease: airports to step up precautions as FMD fragments found in meat products in Australia

If an animal is found to be infected with foot-and-mouth disease in Australia, it could shut off the livestock industry from international markets and cost Australia’s economy billions of dollars. Photograph: Lisa Maree Williams/Getty Images

The federal government will install acidic disinfectant mats at airports as part of an expanded suite of biosecurity measures to prevent foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) entering Australia from Indonesia.

The new precautions come as viral fragments of the disease were detected in food products arriving from China.