Australia Bans Vietnam Traveler Over Suitcase Stuffed With Food

(Bloomberg) -- Australia banned a traveler from visiting for three years after she failed to declare her suitcase was packed with food, including products that risk introducing a pig-killing virus.

The 44-year-old woman, who arrived at Sydney airport Saturday, was sent back to Vietnam, Agriculture Minister Bridget McKenzie said. She had 10 kilograms (22 pounds) of food in her suitcase, almost half of which comprised cooked and uncooked pig-meat. All 63 provinces and cities in Vietnam, including Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, have reported outbreaks of deadly African swine fever, leading to the culling of more than 5.4 million pigs.

The travel ban reflects growing concern that the virus, which has spread to a new country in Asia virtually every month this year, could spread in Australia if it’s brought into the country in smuggled food that’s consumed by farmed or feral pigs. Customs officials report a three-fold increase in the incidence of the virus in clandestine pork products from international arrivals.

Read More: The Deadly Virus That’s Killing Off Millions of Pigs

The 22.5 million passengers arriving in the nation each year, along with mailed parcels, are causing “an increasing risk of incursion, and that’s why we’ve had to step up our detections,” McKenzie told reporters in Canberra Tuesday.

Fragments of African swine fever virus were detected in 48% of tested seized products in September from about 15% of seized products in February, the Department of Agriculture said in an email Tuesday. Capacity to target and seize high-risk products at international airports and mail processing centers has been strengthened, and the testing of feral pigs for the virus in northern Australia began in late 2018, it said.

‘Threat Is Real’

“The biosecurity threat is real and could be devastating for our national pig herd if African swine fever were to become established in Australia,” the department said.

The global pig industry has been roiled by the hemorrhagic virus, which isn’t known to harm humans. Since arriving in the former Soviet republic of Georgia in 2007, it spread through Europe and then to China, where it touched off the largest animal disease outbreak on record in August last year.

South Korea is sending military snipers and civilian hunters to its northern border to eliminate wayward, contagion-carrying pigs from Kim Jong Un’s reclusive neighboring state, where unofficial reports indicate the disease is spreading out of control.

Australia exports about 360,000 tons of pig-meat a year from about 2,700 hog farms, with less than 10% exported to markets including Singapore and Hong Kong, according to industry data.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jason Scott in Canberra at jscott14@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ruth Pollard at rpollard2@bloomberg.net, Jason Gale, Tony Jordan

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