more bird flu, page-5

At the front line of a pandemic, speed is of the essence
Adam Cresswell
September 19, 2005
BILL Rawlinson will be in the front line of Australia's defences if there is a global bird flu pandemic.

As the senior medical virologist for the South Eastern Sydney Area Health Service, he will oversee the race to identify what could be the first human cases of avian influenza in this country.

And the laboratory where he works will have a crucial role - being the closest facility to Sydney airport, the country's busiest, that is suitable for testing dangerous infectious agents.

It has an airlock and a separate air-conditioning system, and has just had a $70,000 renovation in preparation for a bird flu pandemic, as well as the threat of SARS or a possible bioterror attack.

The laboratory, at the Prince of Wales Hospital in Randwick, east Sydney, is classified as PC-3, standing for "physical containment level 3" - one step below the highest category, PC-4, where workers wear biological suits.









Air pressure in the unit is kept slightly lower than in the rest of the building, to minimise the risk of dangerous organisms escaping when the doors are opened.

The only other PC-3 facility in NSW is further from Sydney airport, at Westmead in the city's west.

This means the Prince of Wales laboratory will be first to receive samples for testing when a passenger suspected of having avian influenza steps off an aircraft from a country where the pandemic has struck.

Under the federal Government's influenza pandemic plan, the entire planeload of incoming passengers could be forced off the aircraft and placed in quarantine if one or more are suspected of being infected.

Professor Rawlinson said it would take several hours to test a sample, with scientists amplifying or increasing the amount of RNA - a product of DNA - to see if it matched known bird flu strains.

If the test were positive, the sample would be sent to the laboratory at Westmead for confirmation, and possibly also to the World Health Organisation centre in Melbourne