Biosirt Blog December 2010

The National Coordination Team and DAFF colleagues

DAFF BioSIRT Administrator Marg Coonan- Jones is a member of the Emergency Management Spatial Information Network of Australia (EMSINA) network. The EMSINA was formed to represent state emergency organisations, GIS User Groups and the federal emergency management sector. EMSINA is primarily a network of Emergency Management GIS practitioners sharing ideas, technology and staff and also plays a role in advocacy and operational support.

The Emergency Management Spatial Information Network Australia (EMSINA) meets quarterly. EMSINA recently conducted a professional workshop in Darwin preceding the Australasian Fire Advisory Council (AFAC) conference.

At the workshop members presented on the following topics:

• NSW RFS - Public Spatial Information for Fire Emergencies
• 'NT Visualiser', the Northern Territories Google Enterprise mapping solution
• Web-Mapping weather data feeds from the BOM
• GIS and Spatial Web Services for Coordinated All Hazard Operations in WA
• Coordinating spatial resources and information sharing during major emergencies at Geoscience Australia
• Mapping components of the new National Fire Fighting Aircraft Tracking & Event Logging system
• Mapping Inland Floods for Emergency Response
• Moving towards Nationally consistent emergency management mapping symbology- an EMSINA project view
• -Simplifying burn planning with server based GIS analysis

Building National BioSIRT workspaces

BioSIRT’s capacity to deal with a wide variety of diseases and pests across various sectors is founded on the development of workspaces that compartmentalising each program or response to a particular context.

In dealing with emergencies, uncertainty is inherent and the context for the next response is unknown. Preparation involves jurisdictions combining their resources to build workspaces in advance for high priority diseases and pests.

Once built, these BioSIRT workspaces are stored in the National Reference Library ready for any jurisdiction that may need to download and implement it to respond to an emergency or in a planned emergency incident exercise.

Once stored in the library, this single reference copy does not lie dormant, it is updated for example, if there is a change in procedures or it is reviewed following its implementation. Use of the BioSIRT workspace could be in an actual emergency response.

At the end of the emergency response or the exercise, the BioSIRT workspace is evaluated and improvements are made to the reference copy for approval by the National BioSIRT Standards Committee and updating in the library, thus enhancing Australia’s readiness to respond to emergencies.

BioSIRT workspaces that have been completed and approved and reside in the national reference library include Classical Swine Fever, Foot and Mouth Disease, Karnal Bunt, Avian Influenza, Varroa Mite of Bees and Asian Green Mussel.

There is also a set of generic workspaces that can be implemented and customised for responses to other pests and diseases. The library contains approved workspaces for generic diseases, generic diseases with vector and generic health pests. This agreed set of generic workspaces will be completed early in 2011 with the approval of the generic pest species workspace.

The Application

NBDC Update

Resource Management Package (RMP)

An RMP project is currently being initiated. The package is a tool to provide a nationally consistent solution to resource management in an emergency and the ability to assign and manage and resources appropriately. The RMP will contain information on human resources, equipment and links to BioSIRT data to facilitate effective resource management.

The RMP project intends to use a QLD prototype as a starting point from which further development will be undertaken to nationalise the solution. The RMP Working Group (RMP WG) will undertake the work and comprise NBDC members, members of the National Logistics Network (NLN) and other impacted users. For more information contact BioSIRT@daff.gov.au

Advanced Administrator Training

Brisbane was the location for the first delivery of the newly approved Advanced Administrator Training Modules: Administrator Oversight and BioSIRT Coordination in an Emergency Response. These modules were delivered by Frecko and are an excellent and much called-for addition to the BioSIRT training program.

These modules were delivered to Biosecurity Queensland and DEEDI staff.

We are expecting to deliver the full 4 modules of the BioSIRT Advanced Administrator course in Adelaide in March 2011. More details to follow early next year.

Area-wide management of plant pests

Area-wide management (AWM) is a method of controlling a pest over an area where a crop is grown. AWM is used extensively around the world for a range of commodities against a range of pests.

In the Gayndah-Mundubberah citrus-growing area in the Central Burnett region of South-East Queensland, AWM is lowering the prevalence of Queensland Fruit Fly (Bactrocera tryoni) to negligible levels throughout about 50km of valley length.

AWM in Gayndah-Mudubberah uses an integrated pest management approach, based largely on a combination of male annihilation technology (traps with pheromone lure and insecticide) and protein baiting (insecticide-laden protein mixture that selectively targets newly emerged females is sprayed onto orchard trees). Other measures include removal of unwanted fruit trees in urban centres and backyards, public awareness campaigns, and the provision of free traps to town dwellers.

AWM of fruit flies is an alternative to post-harvest dipping of fruit in insecticide. AWM is accepted as a phytosanitary measure by importing regions and/or countries on a case-by-case basis.There is no single 'standard' for AWM set by government. Each scheme is tailored to the context in which it is applied , usually by jurisdiction’s agriculture departments acting in collaboration with local producers and agronomists. Therefore there is considerable, and perhaps even necessary, variation between schemes , given that each area has a unique set of geographic, climatic, social and economic factors that need to be co-ordinated for AWM to work.

However the imminent loss of registration for the insecticides dimethoate and fenitrothion is likely to disrupt trade that occurs under the Interstate Certification Assurance Scheme (e.g. ICA28), unless alternative measures such as AWM can be introduced to the satisfaction of importing Jurisdictions. At the workshop this point was debated; there may be a role for BioSIRT as an audit tool for AWM.

BioSIRT can play a role at various levels of surveillance and regulation of AWM, perhaps providing a common framework for auditing of accredited schemes.

2010 has been a busy year for the National BioSIRT Program. A key driver and visionary for the program was lost with the departure of Debra Riddell. This created an opportunity for Gilian Lee and Rochelle Christian as new co-managers to reflect on achievements to date and to refocus the vision and our path to achieving it. This continues to be a work in progress for us as day to day progress towards agreed outcomes continues apace. Key achievements have included finalisation of the request for tender for ongoing development and maintenance of the application and signing of a contract with Spatial Vision, agreement of enhancements for v2.1 of the application, completion of a performance testing suite, purchase of a new training server, release of all but one of the generic emergency response templates and our first national template for routine surveillance (FFS), and approval of two new advanced administrator training modules.

2011 is already looking busy with things to look forward to including finalising recruitment of an ongoing National BioSIRT Senior Administrator position, release of v2.1, initiation of the RMP project, finalisation of the National Fruit Fly Rollout, contracting and commencement of stage I of our ABIN proof of concept project, and development of a plan for our project with ACERA on improving trace prioritisation.

The NCT wishes everyone involved in the National BioSIRT Program a happy and relaxed Christmas holiday and hopes to see you all refreshed and enthusiastic in the new year.