Pig infections have been discovered in the local government areas of Loddon, Campaspe, Wangaratta, Gannawarra, Greater Shepparton and Greater Bendigo.
This is the first time pigs in mainland Australia have been confirmed as carrying JEV.
On Friday, March 11, Federal Agriculture Minister David Littleproud announced $69 million to help fast-track a targeted vaccine program, improve disease surveillance and increase lab testing rates.
“A national surveillance plan is being developed to identify and locate infected mosquitoes, birds, pigs — including feral pigs — horses and humans,” Mr Littleproud said.
Vaccines will become available in late March and April to piggery staff.
Vaccinations against the virus were previously only recommended for those living in the Torres Strait and people travelling into rural Asia where the virus is active.
The virus terminates litters, resulting in stillborn piglets, and is suspected to make boars infertile.
Australian Pork Ltd chief executive Margo Andrae represents the domestic pork industry and said she had been in contact with pork farmers dealing with active cases of JEV.
“We’re seeing small numbers become infected in the piggeries,” Ms Andrae said.
“Because it doesn’t spread pig to pig, it dosen’t go through the whole lot.”
Ms Andrae said the pork industry was already on high biosecurity alert because of African swine fever, but they were testing regularly for JEV because it had never been recorded before.
“It’s only the sows who get impacted if they’re bitten at a certain time in gestation, but they recover very quickly,” she said.
“There is a vaccine for humans here and the state governments are about to start on a program to target high-risk workers, but we’re also focusing on getting the vaccine for pigs.”
The JEV vaccine for pigs isn’t currently available in Australia, but APL estimates they’ll have supplies in time for summer 2022-23.
“We expect the mosquito numbers to drop over winter and we’ll have vaccines ready for next summer,” Ms Andrae said.
Humans can only catch the virus from mosquitoes that have bitten infected pigs, as other livestock like horses are dead-end carriers.
People cannot catch the virus by eating pork.
On Friday, March 11 there were 15 confirmed cases of JEV in humans.
The largest pork producer in Australia, Riverlea, is based in Corowa on the Murray River. Riverlea was contacted for comment but didn’t reply by deadline.
The second largest pork producer in Australia, SunPork Farms, declined to comment.
