Australia--Risk of swine fever considered slight.

AUSTRALIA-SLIGHT RISK OF SWINE FLU.

The Australian Veterinary Association says the international swine flu outbreakis not a threat to Australian pigs and that eating pork poses no human health risk.

AVA president Dr Mark Lawrie says Australia has well-organised medical and veterinary response arrangements in place to identify and manage any outbreak if swine flu does reach Australia.

But the AVA is not concerned about an outbreak among pigs here in Australia.

"Australia doesn’t import any pigs, so we’re not worried about animals getting sick or spreading this disease," Dr Lawrie said.

"People should have no qualms about going ahead and eating pork.

"Swine flu is not spread through food.

"In any case, the swine flu virus is inactivated as soon as the meat reaches 70° Celsius during cooking."

Dr Lawrie said the real concern was human-to-human transmission by those who have visited a country with an outbreak.

"Swine flu is spread in humans by skin to skin contact, so washing hands is going to be much more effective than a face mask," Dr Lawrie said.

He said around 70pc of emerging diseases are capable of infecting both animals and humans and that closer international collaboration was needed among researchers.