The Cooperative Research Centres Association has honoured the Australian Biosecurity CRC for Emerging Infectious Disease with an Innovation Award. This recognises the impact of their research and adoption program on the recent equine influenza outbreak in Australia.

In an example of one innovation building on another, the AB-CRC supported the development and technology transfer of a rapid avian influenza diagnostic test. Providing unprecedented national capability for influenza testing, it was ready when equine influenza hit Australia for the first time.

Influenza infects birds and mammals. The H5N1 avian influenza strain was first detected in humans in 1996 in Hong Kong, where it killed six people. Little was heard of it until 2003, when it gained a foothold in South-east Asia, sparking big programs to slaughter poultry in a bid to contain it. It has since spread to the Middle East and parts of Europe.

Although it has claimed hundreds of lives, it has not reached pandemic proportions because it is spread only from birds to humans. So far there have been no confirmed cases of human-to-human infection but that mode of transmission cannot be ruled out.

Scientists have long warned, however, that the virus could mutate and be passed directly through human contact.

The image below is freely available for use when credited as
©Bronwen Healy Photography, 2007.
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