Chief vet warns New England farmers to isolate stock if foot and mouth spreads to the region

In an interview with the Leader, Australian Chief Veterinary Officer Dr Mark Schipp, said farmers should keep travellers off properties and away from herds for a week after their return.

Foot and mouth fragments were detected in Melbourne on Tuesday during routine testing.

Reports suggest the virus is limited to pork products imported to Melbourne, but if it spreads in Australia Dr Schipp said locals must help contain it.

"Our advice to farmers is that they wait a week if they've been in traffic with livestock and particularly if they know those livestock were infected," Dr Schipp told the Leader.

He said while the first response would be stopping stock movements and slaughtering infected herds, farmers also need to stop certain people or animals coming onto their property.

Should the disease spread to the region he said farmers would need to isolate their stock however they could.

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"Farmers would be advised to move their animals away from fence lines that neighbour other properties," Dr Schipp said.

"So try and bring their animals into the centre of their properties so there's a large buffer between their animals and their neighbour's animals."

Dr Schipp also warned the process of freezing does not kill the virus, as has been suggested in the community.

"We use freezers to store the virus and to keep them long-term," he said.

"The virus is killed by sunlight and exposure to air."

The meat is still edible for humans if cooked, but meat product used in feed for livestock could still present a problem.

If the virus was preserved by cooling in food then discarded to animals, Agriculture Minister Murray Watt said this would mean the disease officially being in Australia.

"Let's say for argument's sake [the virus] is in a piece of salami that gets imported to Australia, people eat most of the salami and throw the rest of it in the pig scraps - if pigs were to eat that, that could transmit the virus in Australia," Mr Watt said.

A traveller returning from Indonesia has also been stopped with undeclared beef product containing fragments of the virus, and Mr Watt said this was evidence of biosecurity working to identify threats.

"If you try to bring products into the country without declaring them, you will be caught," he said.

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