CSIRO part of global battle against pandemic threats

Australian scientists are part of an international consortium creating ‘battle maps’ that visualise how bird flu and other viruses constantly mutate to camouflage their antigens, or ‘invading soldiers’, to avoid being neutralised by the immune system’s ‘artillery’.

In a collaborative effort between the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and international and Indonesian scientists, a research team from 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 an important 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.

Additionally, the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) and the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization have joined forces to create OFFLU - a global network of expertise on animal influenzas.

OFFLU will play an active role in the process that the World Health Organization (WHO) uses 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.

“We are aiming to keep the public health authorities up to date about the animal viruses circulating around the world, so that the WHO can determine whether their human vaccine banks remain relevant or must be restocked to keep up with the latest changes in influenza viruses, which evolve continuously,” Dr Daniels said.