MAF Biosecurity has issued four draft health standards for pork being imported from Canada, The United States, Mexico and the European Union.
Border Standards Director Tim Knox says the draft standards are based on an import risk analysis on the 'porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome'; or PRRS virusin pig meat.
He says it is a virus we do not yet have in New Zealand, but in 2001 there was an association between the disease and pig meat, and some provisional measures were put in place.
Tim Knox says setting up the standards has been a particularly lengthy process reflecting the fact pork imports are rather controversial. He says New Zealand';s import measures have to be technically justifiable, and based on the best available science.
