February 17, 2011

Australian scientists join worldwide fight against bird flu risks

Australian scientists, who are in the international group that builds 'battle maps', are envisioning how bird flu viruses continually mutate to disguise their antigens to prevent neutralisation from the immune system.

In a collaborative effort between the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and international and Indonesian scientists, a research team from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) recently used a pioneering technique known as antigenic cartography to 'map' the evolution of the bird flu virus.

While helping the Indonesian government protect its vast poultry flock against the deadly disease, this work also played a vital role in helping to manage the risk to Australia's billion dollar poultry industry.

The outcomes from this technology are a major step forward in the fight against emerging infectious animal diseases, including bird flu, and the risks they pose to human health, global food security and animal health and welfare.

To prepare for future outbreaks, the country needs increasing cooperation, communication and sophistication in the way the animal health sector interacts with the public health sector.

In response, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the UN's FAO has joined forces to create OFFLU - a global network of expertise on animal influenzas. According to Dr. David Daniels from CSIRO and Chairman of the OFFLU Executive Committee, the network offers a unique way of managing influenzas in the animal health sector while communicating directly with the public health sector.

OFFLU will play an active role in the process that the World Health Organization (WHO) use to select antigens for human influenza vaccines, similar to the 'mapping' work that CSIRO did to help the Indonesian government ensure poultry vaccines for bird flu are effective.

As a member of the OFFLU network, CSIRO's Australian Animal Health Laboratory in Geelong is one of three laboratories around the world currently collaborating with the WHO to generate the scientific data that guide this process, to protect against the threat of H5N1 flu becoming a pandemic.