BioSIRT Log - March 2010

Collaboration

The National Biosecurity Committee (NBC) had a face to face meeting in Sydney on February 4. Debra Riddell, the National BioSIRT Program Manager, was asked to give a presentation to the Committee on national aggregation of biosecurity information in BioSIRT.

Members of the National Coordination Team (NCT) traveled to Hobart on February 9 as part of the National Fruit Fly Project rollout that commenced in January. The Fruit Fly Surveillance (FFS) template was installed in Tasmania over a two day period with the assistance of Carol Houghton and Guy Westmore from Tasmania’s Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment (DPIPWE). Training is now being planned for approximately 80 quarantine officers and will take place in April. South Australia and the Northern Territory are next on the list with visits and implementation being planned for April and May.

The Northern Area Quarantine Service (NAQS) held a Scientists Meeting in Cairns on February 16-19. The NCT were pleased to be invited to participate in the discussions held over three days. Discussions were had with all plant groups (entomology, plant pathology and botany) as well as veterinary groups. Particular attention was paid on the development of Personal Digital Assistants (PDA’s), and current field collection methods and record keeping systems. Information collected from this meeting will be used to develop templates specific to NAQS routine surveillance activities.

Consistency

The National BioSIRT Standards Committee have recently endorsed the following national BioSIRT templates for use: Generic Disease (GDI) and Generic Disease with Vector (GDV). Work continues on a number of priority diseases / pests for emergency preparedness templates. A template for the aquatic disease, White Spot Disease (WSD) is currently in peer review and is expected to be presented to the NBSC for review in June 2010.

White Spot Disease is an OIE listed viral disease caused by the White Spot Virus (WSV) or White Spot Syndrome Virus (WSSV).

All decapod crustaceans (order Decapoda), including prawns, lobsters and crabs are considered susceptible to infection. But WSD has mainly been a problem in farmed penaeid prawns. Currently, three marine prawn species, Penaeus monodon (giant tiger prawn), P. japonicus and P. merguiensis (banana prawn), and one freshwater species, Macrobrachium rosenbergii (giant freshwater prawn), are farmed commercially in Australia.

Clinical signs include a sudden reduction in food consumption, lethargy, loose cuticle and often reddish discolouration, and the presence of white spots of 0.5 to 2.0HmmH in diameter especially at the inner surface of the shell on its head (carapace).

Transmission of the virus is mainly through cannibalism of sick or dying prawns, contaminated water and vertical transmission (from infected broodstock) in case of prawn hatcheries. The virus spreads from farms in effluent water to neighbouring wild prawn populations and through escaped prawns. Diagnosis of disease/virus is confirmed through molecular testing (PCR).

An outbreak of WSD in Australia is most likely to occur and be detected in farmed penaeid prawns. The response strategy would be decided by the Director of Fisheries and/or the Chief Veterinary Officer (CVO) of the state or territory in which the outbreak occurs. Strategies that may be employed include quarantine and movement controls, destruction, decontamination, surveillance, zoning and biosecurity measures.

Global Biosecurity Conference 2010

Biosecurity has become a major economic issue of concern to governments, agricultural industries and environmental organisations worldwide.

The Global Biosecurity 2010: safeguarding agriculture and the environment conference was held at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre from 28 March to 3 February 2010. It provided a forum for stakeholders from across the biosecurity spectrum, including researchers, industry representatives, policy makers, primary producers and importers/exporters to network and exchange knowledge, share ideas between researchers and end-users i.e. industry, and to build cross-disciplinary networks across all biosecurity related disciplines. 

Debra Riddell attended the conference and gave a presentation on the BioSIRT contextual framework and its application to the cross-jurisdictional and broader collection of fruit fly related information.

Further information on the conference program sessions can be found at http://www.globalbiosecurity2010.com/

The Application

Is your instance of BioSIRT performing at its best? How does it compare with other instances?

Performance testing (also called "benchmarking") gives you a quantitative assessment of how your instance compares to the IEFS specification. A set of scripts mimics the actions of multiple users performing suites of tasks, from logging on to reviewing AOIs to running reports. The NCT has created a standard dataset to support this process and it, the scripts and the results obtained on a computer configured according to the IEFS specification will be available soon. These results will be the IEFS benchmark. You will be able to load the data into your local environment and run the same scripts.

The server must be offline while running the scripts which takes about a day. A tool to dump your existing BioSIRT and CRIS databases to a backup file is included. The same tool can be used to load the standard databases and reload your data after you have finished benchmarking.

Training

Members of the NCT successfully completed level 2 of Crystal Reports Training in Report Design in late February. The training will provide the team with invaluable skills in developing reports and improving report functionality for national BioSIRT templates.

BioSIRT Q & A

Q. BioSIRT uses templates to maintain national consistency of information. Are there any national templates available?

A.  The National BioSIRT Standards Committee (NBSC) is responsible for the development of nationally agreed templates. The NBSC endorsed an approach to produce generic templates for managing emergency responses for diseases and pests. NBSC working groups were formed as a mechanism for jursidictional collaboration and skills sharing.

Q.  What if the template needs to be changed?

A.  Any BioSIRT administrator can modify an installed template as long as they have the appropriate security access. National templates are subject to an agreed and documented change control process to ensure national consistency is maintained. In an emergency response, alignment of templates cross-jurisdictionally will be the responsibility of the jurisdictional administrators with the assistance of the NCT National Senior Administrator.

Q.  What are the arrangements for ongoing maintenance and support for BioSIRT?

A.  The National Coordination Team (NCT) for BioSIRT has approved funding through to 2012. This funding includes provision for the ongoing maintenance and support for the BioSIRT application nationally.

South Australia - Exercise Oracle Fox

PIRSA Biosecurity ran a Foot and Mouth disease (FMD) exercise in the first week of March, concentrating on the use of BioSIRT in the management of an emergency animal disease (EAD) response and staff capacity in supporting that use. Peter Frecklington from the NCT was invited to observe, his report follows.

Dubbed Oracle Fox, the exercise set up a mock Control Centre with all operational roles accessing BioSIRT and creating records as the incident proceeded. An extra terminal projected the map of the Restricted Area via a digital projector to give a sense of the overall response and to monitor progress in real time.

Through a simulated EAD response, the exercise aimed to build the skills, confidence and knowledge of personnel by providing them with the opportunity to use BioSIRT in their Local Control Centre (LCC) role in a simulation of an EAD response. BioSIRT user induction and guideline materials were trialed with a view to review and improve their effectiveness. The FMD simulation was also used to build awareness of the role BioSIRT plays in the management of information flows in a LCC.

The simulated outbreak of FMD concentrated on the activities inside the LCC, including desktop activities to practise data entry, information flow and report generation in BioSIRT. Mapping outputs were also utilised and practice was obtained in their use for management of a response.

South Australian BioSIRT Administrators were on hand to provide support for users, as one of the objectives of the exercise. They reported that the event went smoothly with users using BioSIRT quite well. They also said that users provided constructive feedback on features, primarily minor changes that they would like to see incorporated into the FMD template itself and its related reports.

This exercise effectively tested the FMD emergency preparedness template. Feedback will now be incorporated into the national FMD template as part of the change control process for the National BioSIRT Standards Committee.