Stakeholder Update – October 2017
Sub-Project 1: Rapid Diagnostics and Vaccination Strategy Preparedness
CSIRO’s scientists from the Australian Animal Health Laboratory are helping several countries in the region improve their diagnostic capabilities and research into foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) which in turn helps Australia better understand the FMD virus strains circulating in the region. Read more.
Sub-Project 2: Farmer-led Surveillance Systems
The sub-project two team has identified opportunities to increase early reporting and detection of significant diseases and potential areas for improving animal health surveillance systems. They have also engaged with government and industry stakeholders through a number of workshops.
With the support of industry and jurisdictional stakeholders, a survey of the sheep industry has been launched in four jurisdictions. Survey tools for the beef and goat industries are currently undergoing testing and surveys for the pork and dairy industries are under consideration. The team would like to thank all stakeholders for their assistance with the project so far.
Sub-Project 3: Outbreak Decision Support Tools
Following the workshops in June and September, work in this sub-project is currently focussed on verifying information about control measures and costs with jurisdictions for AADIS simulations and developing an economic framework.
Workshop feedback also identified the desirability of simulating any potential role of feral pigs in disease transmission and proof-of-freedom, so examinations on how to build the capacity of AADIS to address this question are underway.
The project has recently benefited from the addition of Dr Nhu Che and Manon Courias from CSIRO and Dr Sharon Roche and Dr Andrew Breed from the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources to the subproject team. Click here to read more about them!
Sub-Project 4: Disease Transmission Analysis
Experts in veterinary epidemiology, climatology, spatial analyses, virology, bioinformatics and software engineering are currently working together to design an application which, using FMD as a model, will help identify how the disease may spread between farms if there were to be an outbreak.
Version one of the SPREAD application (in development) focuses on determining if farm-to-farm spread of the virus may occur via wind, and enables the use of genetic data to confirm this path of transmission.
Two jurisdictions (New South Wales and Victoria) have agreed to partner with the researchers in development of the application and to ensure its suitability for end-users.