BioSIRT Log - February 2010

Collaboration

Debra Riddell presented a walkthrough of the National Fruit Fly Surveillance (FFS) template to representatives from the Biosecurity Services Group, Plant Quarantine and Export Operations division in Canberra on 12 January 2010.

Peer review of several Emergency Response templates developed by the National BioSIRT Standards Working Groups (SWG) was completed in early January. The templates peer reviewed were the Varroa Mite of Bees (VMB), Asian Honey Bee (AHB), Khapra Beetle (KHB), Asian Green Mussel (AMG), Huanlongbing (HLB), Generic Health Pest (GHP) and Generic Pest Species (GPS).

The National Fruit Fly Rollout project commenced in January. The national fruit fly template is being finalised and will soon be available to all jurisdictions. As well as supporting local collection of routine trapping information this project will be creating a national dataset of all fruit fly information for 2009/2010.

The BioSIRT Governance Group (BGG) had their first meeting for 2010 on 19 January. The Resource Management Package (RMP)   options paper; an outcome of the face to face RMP Workshop in December 2009, was presented for decision. The BGG agreed to endorse the proposal to work collaboratively with Biosecurity Queensland in developing a nationally, integrated RMP for BioSIRT.

The National Coordination Team (NCT) had a teleconference with colleagues from the Northern Australian Quarantine Service (NAQS) to discuss the development of domestic (on-shore) templates including a generic NAQS sentinel herds (NSH) template. Representatives from the NCT will travel to Queensland in early February to further discuss the development of NAQS templates.

Consistency

The National BioSIRT templates for Generic Disease with Vector (GDV) and the updated Generic Disease (GDI) will be presented to the NBSC for review in February. The Varroa Mite of Bees (VMB), Asian Honey Bee (AHB), and Generic Health Pest (GHP) templates are expected to be presented to the NBSC for review in March.

There are about 20, 000 species of bees worldwide that belong in the superfamily Apoidea. Of these the prominent bee in Australia is the ubiquitous European honey bee (Apis mellifera). Australian farmers mostly rely on feral honeybees; managed European honeybees gone wild, to pollinate their crops. About one-third of the worlds food supply is produced through insect pollination, the European honeybee performs almost 80 percent of this pollination.

The Asian honeybee (Apis cerana) occurs naturally throughout Asia, but is not currently established in Australia. The Asian honeybee is closely related to the European honeybee and shares many characteristics (pictured below); however the Asian honeybee is generally a poor pollinator and has become adapted to living with parasitic varroa mites. The destructive varroa mites are threateningly close to Australia – in Indonesia and New Zealand.

If Asian honeybees were to establish in Australia, a significant reduction in the feral honeybee population and of managed hives may result, with a subsequent loss in pollination.

Crop yields and quality would also be lowered if there was a loss of pollination. Other potential outcomes include an increase in production costs for crops that rely on managed pollination, and large production losses where managed pollination was unavailable. Financial hardship for beekeepers would also be anticipated because of the high cost of control measures and the decrease in honey production.

The Application

The BioSIRT application software was originally produced under a development contract between the former NSW Department of Primary Industries and Spatial Vision. This contract formally ended at the completion of the software warranty period on 9 September 2009. An interim arrangement for BioSIRT hosting and support services is currently in place with Spatial Vision. Planning for procurement of ongoing contractual services to support the BioSIRT application software began in late 2009. These procurement activities are being conducted in accordance with the Commonwealth Procurement Guidelines as released by the Commonwealth Department of Finance and Deregulation. A formal, open market Request for Tender is in the final stages of preparation.

Training

The new Training and Communications Officer, Kymme Hoadley, is returning to her former role in the NCT 1 February 2010.  To learn more about Kymme, read her biopic in this edition.

The National BioSIRT program has a commitment to provide nationally consistent training material to the jurisdictions to ensure the success of the implementation of the BioSIRT application. There are a range of courses that will be designed, developed or redeveloped and delivered throughout the year. The new release presently under development for 2010 is an Advanced Administrator Training course that will cover Reports and   Geographic Information Systems (GIS). The NCT are aiming to deliver the new Advanced Administrator Training in the first half of 2010.

An Emergency Response Training package is also currently being planned in consultation by Animal Health Australia (AHA) and Plant Health Australia (PHA).

Additionally, the NCT are still offering the current suite of training available that includes Train the Trainer, Administrator Training and User Training. All training material is being updated for Version 2 BioSIRT changes.

...New Faces…

Kymme Hoadley
 
I’m back! I’ve returned to my former position within the BioSIRT National Coordination Team as the Training and Communications Officer.

I’ve returned after working at Plant Health Australia (PHA) for the past 8 months. At PHA, I was the National Training Coordinator with particular focus on the Emergency Plant Pest Deed (EPPRD) and the delivery of training to Members on their obligations under the EPPRD.

I’m delighted to be returning to the BioSIRT Program and am eagerly looking forward to travelling out to the jurisdictions and delivering training.

If you have any particular training needs that you wish to discuss, please don’t hesitate to call me on 02 6272 5837.

Tasmania - Animal Welfare Inspections Template  

All states are working towards nationally consistent livestock welfare standards and guidelines.  The amended Tasmanian Animal Welfare Act has the capacity to prescribe mandatory animal welfare standards.

Tasmanian inspectors are now recording pig welfare inspection data in BioSIRT on a newly created   workspace.  The Animal Welfare Inspections (AWI) template was built incorporating information provided in a policy document on routine animal welfare inspections of intensive farms produced by the Animal Health & Welfare Branch (AHWB).  

The template was designed initially for pig inspections but will be further developed to incorporate other animal welfare inspection types, such as dairy cattle, poultry, land transport and sea transport.

The template includes a scheduling event and commonly used surveillance forms, and enables a number of different statuses to be applied against an individual AOI for different types of welfare inspection.  Inspectors follow strict biosecurity protocols developed by Bruce Jackson (pictured above), AHWB Senior Veterinary Officer, and use a checklist that was developed in consultation with AHWB vets and stock officers, Food Safety and RSPCA inspectors.  Inspectors are able to record whether non-compliance was identified, which standard(s) was breached, the level of non-compliance, action(s) taken, and the date and intensity of the next inspection required.

For the first time, RSPCA and DPIPWE officers across the State are able to efficiently plan and coordinate their activities and consolidate information into one easily-accessible database.