[Theme music plays]
(Glen Paul) G’day and welcome to CSIROvod, I’m Glen Paul.
You’ve no doubt heard of the deadly Hendra virus,
which came out of nowhere back in 1994
and it showed, like many other animal diseases,
that it’s capable of crossing over into the human population.
That’s why I’ve come here to CSIRO’s Australian Animal Health Laboratory
in Geelong, Victoria,
to meet the Scientists working on the frontline of Australia’s defence
in fighting exotic and emerging diseases.
The day of my visit coincided with the opening of a new
Bio-Safety Level Four Laboratory,
which, if you’ve seen the Hollywood movie Contagion
will know, is the most bio-secure laboratory you can get.
To officially open the new wing, Professor Martyn Jeggo
was coordinating a ribbon cutting ceremony
between the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research,
Senator the Honourable Kim Carr and Dr Glen Marsh,
via video link from the bio-secure unit,
deep within the solid concrete walls of the complex.
(Prof Jaeger) On the count of three, if I may.
Can I ask you both to cut the ribbon we’ll do this in a virtual manner.
So, Glen are you ready.
(Dr Marsh) I’m ready, Martin.
(Prof Jaeger) One, two, three.
[Audience laughs and applauds]
(Glen Paul) With proceedings now out of the way,
I was keen to leave the celebrations and check out the new lab,
however, had I known what was involved,
I might have opted to stay for cake instead.
Safety Officer, Debbie Logan explained the procedure
for going secure with the help of a mock up airlock.
(Debbie Logan) If you see someone in there,
please step out of the change area,
otherwise this is where you’ll take off all your clothing
and all your clothing gets put into your arcade locker which is there
along with the badge that you're wearing.
So you’re standing their naked, even your underwear,
some people seem to think taking their underwear in,
‘cause they’re opening and closing doors,
please leave your underwear here. So you’re standing there naked.
(Glen Paul) With the induction complete,
I met up with Emma who would act as my guide through the bio-security maze.
So, we’re going to go in here now,
there’s a lot of nasties beyond this door as you can see.
So this is where I have to get all my gear off,
get naked and head on through to the other side.
I won’t be able to take that big camera through,
because the decontamination would likely destroy it,
so I’m going to film the rest on this little camera here.
The airlock separating the two worlds
would act as a decontamination shower on the way out.
Press this button here.
[Sound of air releasing]
Wait a few moments.
Dressed in the functional attire that had been left for me,
I was ready to venture out.
It’s about now that it really starts to hit home,
just exactly where you are, sharing living space
with some of the deadliest diseases on the planet.
The Scientists working at the highest level of bio-security
have to wear bio-secure laboratory suits,
which take a bit of getting into.
But going to work with dangerous and exotic agents that are fatal to humans
and where there are no vaccines or other treatments available,
for Scientists like Shawn Todd, you wouldn’t have it any other way.
[Music Plays]
But now, suited up, he’s ready to put in the boot.
Before entering the hot zone, I caught up with the Director of the facility,
Professor Martyn Jeggo and asked him about the new laboratory.
(Dr Jeggo) It’s a new laboratory within our current laboratory complex.
And what it’s addressing is the issue that we’ve seen a change in the risk.
The risk use to be, for most of these nasty viruses,
to our livestock industries.
But we’ve seen, more recently, an emergence of these diseases
from livestock into humans.
There are a lot of changes that are occurring in our planet.
There are many more of us.
We’re travelling in a way we never use to travel before.
We’re entering areas of our ecosystem that we didn’t use to go in before.
We’ve got climate change
and climate change is allowing these viruses to be in different places.
We’re urbanising, we’re in much larger groups
and viruses like large groups of animals or humans to work with.
All of those things have resulted in the change risk profile
and so increasingly we’re seeing,
actually viruses come from wildlife
into our domestic animals and then into humans.
Seventy-five percent of new infectious diseases in humans arise from animals,
so this new lab allows us to work with those viruses
that affect not just livestock but man as well.
In fact, the vast majority of the viruses we work with now
there is no treatment in man,
so we have to make absolutely certain
that our guys are safe when working with these.
That’s what this new lab does.
(Glen Paul) And stepping into the ring with these bad boys every day
you certainly would want the best in protection.
With that it was time for some decontamination.
In here is the shower which I’ll step into shortly and totally wash myself,
and leave all of these clothes here on this side,
so when I go through on the other side
I’ve got nothing with me that was over in the secure area.
You might be wondering what happens to all the shower water,
what if I have picked up some bug that gets washed out down the drain.
Well, there’s absolutely no possibility of that.
All waste water and sewage is treated on site,
nothing gets out, not even air, without being filtered and treated.
It is, after all, the world’s most advance high containment laboratory.
CSIRO’s Australian Animal Health Laboratory,
it’s here that Scientists draw the line in the sand in their fight
against deadly animal and human disease.
And if you’d like to find out more about the research,
the work going on here at the Australian Animal Health Laboratory,
just visit our website www.csiro.au.