Agriculture authorities will test their biosecurity systems for exotic animal disease this week with a simulated outbreak of the highly virulent Newcastle disease in poultry.
New Zealand has no Newcastle disease, but the annual training exercise, from today to Saturday, will pretend that there are high death rates in poultry flocks around South Auckland.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF), AgriQuality NZ, the Poultry Industry Association and the Egg Producers Federation will work to identify and contain the "outbreak."
Details of the exercise will not be released until the start of the exercise, so that poultry farmers and officials do not know how it will unfold.
The disease is often spread through dust contaminated with faeces from infected birds being carried about by humans and equipment, although wild birds can also be involved.
A field operations response team will be based at Pukekohe, and field teams will work at "infected places" with poultry industry staff.
An exotic disease response centre will be set up at MAF's national centre for disease investigation, at Wallaceville, near Wellington.
The response centre will analyse information from field workers, make recommendations on control and containment measures, such as road blocks, and direct field teams.
A national control centre will operate from MAF's head office.
- NZPA
Dummy run for disease response
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