Foot-and-mouth disease Australia: what is FMD and what happens if it enters the country?

Cattle feeding in far north Queensland. There are concerns that foot-and-mouth disease is close to Australia’s border following an FMD outbreak in Indonesia. Photograph: Dave Hunt/AAP

In 2001, the UK was transfixed by grim daily news as government authorities tried to shut down an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.

Piles of destroyed cattle, representing hundreds of years of breeding in some cases, were set alight in fields across the nation, while villages were locked down and regional economies crippled as districts tried to halt the disease’s spread.