FED: SARS virus being stored in Australia
SYDNEY, April 27 AAP - The SARS virus would almost inevitably reach Australia, an expertwarned today, as a sample of the virus was transferred to a high-tech research facilityin Melbourne.
The sample of the virus, which threatens to emulate the great influenza pandemic of1918/19, which claimed millions of lives around the globe, was imported last Thursdayfor analysis by local scientists.
Australia's Chief Commonwealth Medical Officer, Richard Smallwood, said the samplewould be used to try and develop a diagnostic test for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome,which has already claimed 295 lives worldwide.
"The importation of the SARS virus into Australia will allow Australian public healthresearchers to carry out important work to enable the development and validation of diagnostictests for SARS," he said in a statement.
The virus is being stored in the National High Security Quarantine Laboratory in Melbourne.
Professor Smallwood said "several" Australian laboratories and research institutionswould now join global efforts to develop a test for SARS.
In NSW, Health Minister Morris Iemma announced the man who diagnosed Australia's firstAIDS case, Professor Ron Penny, would take charge of a special SARS task force.
Prof Penny's initial assessment of the risk posed by SARS to Australia was ominous.
"We have to assume ... that the SARS virus will at some stage or another come to Australia,"
Prof Penny said.
He noted that SARS required a totally different public health policy approach thanthe arrival in Australia of HIV/AIDS.
"They're not really comparable," Prof Penny said.
"The only thing one can say is that it is almost certainly a new viral illness to humans."
Dominic Dwyer, a senior virologist at Sydney's Westmead Hospital, said Westmead hadthe facilities to work with the virus and would be negotiating with the government togain access to it.
Having access to samples of the virus would give attempts to find a diagnostic testfor SARS a huge boost, he said.
"Having the virus in the country allows us to work up the tests and that's the wholepoint of importing it," Dr Dwyer said.
He said the community should not be alarmed at the prospect of the virus being stored here.
"Everyone thinks importing an exotic virus is a scary thing but it's just really standardlaboratory practice," he said.
Representatives of Australian laboratories were set to meet tomorrow, he said.
The CSIRO's Animal Health Laboratories in Geelong were recently asked to join a globalresearch effort into SARS by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nationsand the World Organisation for Animal Health.
But today a spokeswoman for the laboratories said it was unlikely any testing wouldtake place in Geelong as studies were already underway overseas.
Worldwide, SARS had been blamed for 295 deaths, most of them in Asia. The toll currentlystands at: mainland China 122, Hong Kong 121, Singapore and Canada both 20, Vietnam five,the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand two each, and Taiwan one. Nearly 5,000 people hadbeen infected.
Only one person, a nine-year-old NSW boy, remains under active investigation for SARSin Australia.
AAP jjs/pa/ph/jlw
KEYWORD: SARS AUST THIRD NIGHTLEAD
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