In the Central American country of Costa Rica, work is well underway to head off one of the biggest threats to the global banana industry.

A disease called Panama Tropical Race 4 (TR4) is sweeping parts of the globe, decimating banana plantations and hurting livelihoods.

The popular Cavendish variety, which is the world's largest banana crop, is highly susceptible.

Some experts say the international banana industry faces annihilation if the disease continues to spread.

The fungus has already spread through Asia, particularly China, the Philippines, Malaysia and Taiwan, and more recently to Africa.

It was found in north Queensland earlier this year, with Biosecurity Queensland springing into action to limit its spread.

Attention is now firmly focused on Central and Latin America, which supplies 82 per cent of the world's bananas.

In Costa Rica, where banana production provides 8 per cent of employment, each and every farm is being informed of the risk of TR4.

Posters and flyers are being disseminated, and a documentary about the threat is being shared to banana producers, plantation owners, workers and farm managers.

Dying branches on a banana plant infected with Panama disease. ( Supplied: Department of Agriculture and Fisheries )

Researchers find TR4 is a clone of original Panama disease

Netherlands University of Wageningen senior researcher Gert Kema, an expert in Panama disease and bananas, is part of a team that last month released a paper confirming a suspicion that had been around since the 1980s — that TR4 is a single clone of the original Panama disease that wiped out the Gros Michel banana in the 1960s, and it alone is causing the current worldwide die-off of Cavendish varieties.

Dr Kema said the recent outbreak of TR4 in Australia was a concern in the banana growing countries of Central America.

The races of the Panama: Race 1 infects Lady Finger, Sugar and Ducasse, but not Cavendish

Race 1 infects Lady Finger, Sugar and Ducasse, but not Cavendish Race 2 generally infects cooking bananas like Bluggoe and Blue Java

Race 2 generally infects cooking bananas like Bluggoe and Blue Java Race 3 infects only Heliconia species and not bananas

Race 3 infects only Heliconia species and not bananas Race 4 infects most varieties including Cavendish. There are two important strains of this race

Race 4 infects most varieties including Cavendish. There are two important strains of this race Subtropical race 4 usually produces symptoms in Cavendish after a period of cold stress

Subtropical race 4 usually produces symptoms in Cavendish after a period of cold stress Tropical race 4 is a serious threat to the Australian Cavendish banana industry. Source: Plant Health Australia

"In Latin America so far it has not been found. But almost everybody I speak with, they all confirm it's really most likely and unfortunately only a matter of time," Dr Kema said.

"So therefore alertness is crucial, number one, and we really have to get together and develop plans on how we can eventually overcome this problem."

Dr Kema said it was too early to say the outbreak in Australia had been contained, but what was encouraging was that the measures that had been taken were "truly rigorous".

"For five plants, I think they have been removing 10 hectares surrounding these five plants," Dr Kema said.

"That is amazing. That is not being taken in any other location and of course that is eventually probably the way to go, but you only can do that in particular agricultural settings.

"If you work in a country with millions of smallholders, or hundreds of thousands of smallholders, that usually have only a few hectares or less, you essentially tell a farmer, give up banana growing. That's a very severe method."

Industry pays the price for focusing on one type of banana

American food researcher Dan Koeppel, author of Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World, said the industry was now paying the price for putting all its efforts into one type of banana.

A banana plant shows the tell tale signs of the deadly soil disease, Panama tropical race 4. ( Supplied )

"Panama disease devastates the commercial Cavendish banana, which is the banana that most people in temperate zones eat," Mr Koeppel told ABC Rural earlier this year.

"Cavendish is big business, a big cash crop, and an important staple. Tropical Race 4 threatens that."

He said the spread of the disease to Australia was a bad omen for the global industry.

"If Australia can't slow this disease down for its own domestic banana crop, how is it going to happen in a place less organised, less wealthy and less able to implement measures Australia is trying to implement?"

Researchers looking at ways to combat spread of fungus

The outbreak of TR4 in Australia was discovered on a farm in the Tully Valley in north Queensland in March.

Three separate positive samples have been found on the one farm, the most recent in October.

The Queensland Government announced in July it would spend close to $10 million to boost the fight against the devastating disease.

There also is plenty of activity by industry bodies and researchers on a range of fronts.

University of Queensland associate professor in plant pathology Dr Elizabeth Aitken is involved with the Banana Plant Protection Program, which is looking at ways to protect the industry locally.

Dr Aitken said researchers were working on developing more specific diagnostic tools, as well as looking at banana species that had shown some resistance to TR4.

"The disease has been around for over 100 years, but there is still a lot to learn," she said.

"TR4 has picked up certain features [from the original Panama disease], and attacks Cavendish in sub-optimal conditions. It's quite an aggressive little beastie.

"Once it's in the soil it's there for good. It's a long-lasting species that can grow on the roots of other things."

Dr Aitken said Central America would have a lot of issues if TR4 arrived.

"I do find it scary, relying on just one cultivar [Cavendish]," she said.

"There is the potential there for it to threaten production.

"But things are different now. We have more knowledge than there was in the 1940s.

"There is quite an effort at the moment, but we need a long-term result. There is the potential to put more effort into breeding other varieties."

New varieties could be introduced using classical breeding techniques, which takes time, or through genetic engineering, but there is general consensus in the industry that consumers are not ready for genetically modified bananas.

Dr Aitken said Australia was in a better position than other countries, being an island nation and having a biosecurity response that was "second to none".