Editorial: New centre continues proud tradition
Hugh Davies
The National Centre for Biosecurity and Infectious Disease – Wallaceville (NCBID-Wallaceville) was launched in 2005 to bring together MAF Biosecurity New Zealand's Investigation and Diagnostic Centre (IDC), some of the Institute for Environmental Science and Research's (ESR's) infectious disease groups, AgResearch's infectious disease diagnostic team and AsureQuality (formerly AgriQuality) Limited's diagnostic reagent production group. The IDC, AgResearch and AsureQuality groups were already located at Wallaceville. ESR will move into new laboratories that are currently under construction as well as into part of the existing IDC containment laboratory.
The centre is located on part of the old Wallaceville Animal Research Centre campus in Upper Hutt and continues a proud tradition of infectious disease investigation, diagnosis and research that has been conducted on the site by MAF and AgResearch since the land was purchased by the Crown in 1905. The new campus occupies 3.5 hectares of the original site, purchased from AgResearch in 2006. New roads, fencing and site infrastructure have been constructed to create a stand-alone campus.
NCBID-Wallaceville brings together New Zealand's largest concentration of bacteriologists, virologists and epidemiologists specialising in animal and human health, and provides a model for collaborative research and investigation. Our vision is that NCBID-Wallaceville will build upon this unique alignment of autonomous groups specialising in infectious animal and human disease and biosecurity. It covers operational delivery, research and commercialisation, will foster collaboration among New Zealand's experts and will build reputation, trust and integrity.
The establishment of NCBID-Wallaceville will assist in the identification of research and development needs and enhance the application of research results to achieve applied biosecurity and infectious disease control outcomes that help protect New Zealand and New Zealanders from biosecurity risks. Zoonotic disease – those that spread from animals to humans – are becoming an increasing issue for both biosecurity and human health. The unique skills and facilities that NCBID-Wallaceville brings together will enhance New Zealand's capability to investigate such threats.
Specialist containment facilities are required for the investigation and diagnosis of infectious diseases of animals, such as foot and mouth disease and zoonotic diseases such as West Nile virus, avian influenza and SARS. The NCBID-Wallaceville campus houses New Zealand's only physical containment level 3 plus (PC3+) laboratory that is designed to enable the diagnosis of these diseases in a safe and biosecure environment. The PC3+ laboratory combines the requirements of the Australia/New Zealand Standard for physical containment level 3 with many of the biosecurity features of physical containment level 4: a separate building with restricted access through an airlock shower, filtration of exhaust air and mechanisms to decontaminate all liquid and solid waste before release. Staff remove their clothing before entering the laboratory through an airlock to change into dedicated containment laboratory clothing and shower before leaving the laboratory at the end of the day. Laboratory clothing is heat sterilised before removal from containment for laundering.
The recent foot and mouth disease outbreak in Surrey in the United Kingdom has raised questions about the security of the NCBID-Wallaceville PC3+ facility. We hope to learn from the events that led to this outbreak, which has been attributed to the escape of virus from one of the organisations working with foot and mouth disease on the Pirbright site. The escape of foot and mouth disease virus from Pirbright appears to have resulted from a series of unusual events: virus-containing material was incompletely inactivated before discharge into the campus drains; the pipes taking this contaminated material to the campus inactivation facility were leaking; there was flooding of the area and construction work was being undertaken around the pipes. Trucks working on the site may have carried contaminated soil from around the leaking pipes that was then dropped on the road and spread to neighbouring farms.
Foot and mouth virus is not held at NCBID-Wallaceville and the diagnostic tests used in New Zealand do not contain live virus. The possibility of a similar situation arising with another virus is extremely unlikely. NCBID-Wallaceville does not work with the very large quantities of virus used at Pirbright. We ensure that all waste culture materials are treated with an effective virucide before disposal, and waste-water is treated with high levels of chlorine in tanks close to the laboratory before discharge into the council waste treatment system.
This issue of Biosecurity describes some of the collaborative scientific projects initiated by the partners since the establishment of NCBID-Wallaceville and outlines collaboration with the Wellington Tenths Trust during the development of the new campus.
- Hugh Davies,
Director, Investigation and Diagnostic Centres,
MAF Biosecurity New Zealand
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Page last updated: 30 April 2008