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welcome to our audience here today, and of courseto our viewers out there watching online, for the discussion forum today on "flyingfoxes, your animals and you". my name is sharyn ghidella and i will be your moderator fortoday's discussion. of course the purpose of today's discussion is basically to answerthe public's questions about flying foxes and the hendra virus. now of course members of the public have beeninvited to submit questions online and it is only those questions today that we willbe asking of our panel of experts here. now our panel today, they're very eminent thesepeople, we have dr rick symons the chief veterinary officer of biosecurity queensland. now rickis queensland's chief veterinary officer,

and he's responsible for overseeing the developmentof animal biosecurity policy and overseeing responses such as the recent hendra virusresponse. we also have dr hume field, dr hume field is there. now he is the principal scientistfor biosecurity queensland, he's internationally recognised as an authority on emerging diseasesassociated with bats, he's a veterinary epidemiologist with particular expertise in hendra virus,and australian bat lyssavirus and that is actually the focus of his phd. now i foundthis very interesting about you hume, he strongly believes that human, livestock, wildlife andenvironmental health are inextricably linked and has long championed a one health approachto emerging infectious diseases associated with wildlife. he's currently, well his currentresearch is focused on identifying risk factors

for hendra virus spillover so we'll no doubtbe getting quite a bit of hume today. our other panel over here is professor michaelcleary, the acting chief health officer for queensland health, now professor cleary isqueensland's, well actually you worked for queensland health for 27 years, you're currentlythe deputy director-general within the policy, strategy and resourcing division of queenslandhealth so he's going to answering all the questions regarding human health and hendravirus. and last but not least, clive cook who is the general manager of the departmentof environment and resource management. now clive has worked for 30 years in a numberof protected areas. he's currently the general manager of the conservation, strategy andplanning branch within the queensland parks

and wildlife division of the department ofenvironment and resource management known as derm. that is a long title clive but thankyou very much for joining us. clive has gained extensive management experience in dealingwith wildlife related issues across australia and more recently has led derm's responsesto flying fox issues across queensland. so that gives you an idea of our panel's expertise.now they're going to work through the questions today, as many questions as we can get, andthey'll basically be addressing the myths and trying to clarify facts about hendra virus.can i say congratulations to everyone who submitted a question, you're all very, verygood. i was very impressed with the questions, you've all missed your calling, you shouldhave been journalists! but, unfortunately

we're not going to be able to get throughall these questions today. what i've tried to do is prioritise the questions based onhow many people have asked a particular question, so please excuse me if we don't get to yourquestion today. we will try our hardest. so to get started, i guess this year particularlythere's been a high incidence of hendra virus around, a lot has happened in the last threemonths. maybe i think professor cleary and rick, if we could just get you maybe to givean overview of where we're at at the moment and, so the people have got an idea of what'shappened and where we're at now. sure sharyn, it has been a bit year this yearfor hendra virus, we've had in australia we've had 17 spillover events, nine of which havebeen in queensland with 11 horse deaths and

eight of those have occurred in new southwales with 10 horse deaths. compare that to what's happened up to this year, where therewere only 14 spillover events to 1994 to this year so indeed it has been a big year thisyear. it's been spread from the furthest south we've had it in maxfield in new south walesto as far north as kuranda, and its gone to chinchilla this year which is the furthestinland we've seen it. but most of the spillover event or the incidents have occurred aroundsouth east queensland and northern new south wales. in queensland we've quarantined 18properties as a result of the hendra virus outbreak, we've tested over a 100 horses inrelation to those, we've tested 31 dogs, one of which became positive for hendra virus,and we tested two cats. so you can see there's

been a lot of activity. fortunately we haven'thad any human cases this year, and michael will carry on to that. and the quarantineproperties now, most of them are out of quarantine and we've only got one property now in quarantineand we hope to remove that quarantine within the next two weeks. but i don't think we shouldbe complacent about hendra virus although we've had a spike of events. its not necessarily, the risk is not necessarilyover, we still need to take precautions about hendra virus, it could happen tomorrow, itcould be happening here as we speak today. so the message is that we've had a lot ofspikes, a lot of cases where we're getting over those but the risk has not gone away.

professor cleary? thank you. i think this has been, from myperspective a very good year from the health perspective, and i'll come in and talk aboutthat in a moment, but clearly hendra virus is an emerging illness and one that has avery high complication or mortality rate associated with it. all of the cases to date have beencases where flying foxes have been affected and horses which are what we call an amplificationhost have been involved before there's been transmission to any person. and over the yearswe've had seven people who have been infected by it, so its got a very low infectivity andwe know that this virus is one of the virus' that doesn't change on a regular basis. soit's a very stable virus. in terms of the

positives to which i eluded, i think thatthe industry has done a remarkable job in terms of putting in place the health preventionand promotion activities that's really seen no one this year having a high exposure. we'veassessed something like 68 people on the properties that have been quarantined or affected andnone of those have had a high exposure this year. whereas in prior years there was certainlya number of people that had been rated as having a high exposure. the reason for thatis i think people are becoming more aware of this illness, they're making sure thatthey're doing things like moving food and water from underneath the trees, actuallybeing much more careful with their horses when they do become unwell and i think theveterinary profession has taken significant

steps forward in terms of their personal protectionwhen they're treating or caring for sick horses. so from my perspective that's been a realpositive and i would like to compliment the industry on the action that they've clearlytaken because this is quite a significant change. the second thing and i might onlymention briefly is that there's been work undertaken by the university of queenslanddeveloping and antibody against the virus which can be used in certain circumstancesand again that's been a remarkable body of work, that we've got a very purified antibodythat could be used in circumstances where people have had a high exposure and are atrisk of developing an infection. there is a complicated process before that treatmentis being considered, but the work that's been

done by the university i think again is quiteremarkable. certainly very promising indeed. alright wellwe'll get into the questions now from the public, and what i found interesting therewas still a lot of questions even though we seem to know how hendra virus goes from batto horse, there was still a lot of people out there asking like carol from hattonvale- do flying foxes really spread the hendra virus as i've heard many different opinionson this, or does any other animal spread it? and i guess hume that's probably your areaof expertise, can we clear that up straight away? thanks sharyn that's a good question to startwith because it is and continues to come up,

not only this year but in previous years alwaysat least some level of uncertainty or what a lack of awareness about the role of flyingfoxes. and i think if i can break into two parts. firstly are flying foxes the naturalreservoir for hendra virus and related virus' and then secondly are flying foxes the directsource of infection for horses. so going to that first part then it's clear and unequivocalthat flying foxes are the natural reservoir for hendra virus in australia and for relatedviruses throughout the world. this group of virus' that hendra belongs to and nipah viruselsewhere, the henipaviruses are clearly a natural reservoir with flying foxes acrossthe geographic range. its clear not only from our work in australia but from the work ofmultiple scientists in multiple countries

that these group of virus' appear to haveevolved, co-evolved with flying foxes if you like. the flying foxes have got a very mature relationship,if you like to say that, in the context of the immunology that flying foxes don't getsick from these virus' but the virus' do replicate in them, and spread through the populationsat some times to a great or lesser extent. i think that's the first thing clearly wecan say flying foxes are the natural reservoir for hendra virus. the second question is alittle more contentious and i guess we have a lot of epidemiological evidence that suggeststhat there is direct transmission to flying fox to horses, and i'll talk about that. sothe first thing that i might say is that all

the spillover events to horses occur withinthe distribution of flying foxes, and hendra cases are more likely to be in close proximityto flying fox roosts than non-hendra cases. we know although that, sorry i've lost mytrain of thought, that the flying foxes excrete virus in urine, there's the potential of contaminationof pasture, the potential for ingestion of that pasture or material by horses. the otheraspect that is that we have actually looked at many non flying fox species as well sowhen we first found evidence of hendra virus in flying foxes, then we didn't just stopthere, we looked naturally as many of the questions have suggested a range of otherspecies as well. and we've looked at something like a thousand individual animals from multiplespecies, particularly species that co-exist

with flying foxes and they were rodent species,they were native marsupial species, snakes, birds etc as well as several times that numberof insects and ectoparasites from animals and found no evidence of hendra virus in anyof these other species. so there's no chance then another speciesis involved in the transmission chain. we've got a question here from neil at ipswich askingabout mosquitoes, possums, ticks - they play no role in it whatsoever? there's no evidence to suggest that and againlet me elaborate on that a little bit. so, there are groups of virus' that mosquitoesand ticks can transmit, and these… and in the human health area, things like denguevirus, and even in the equine world things

like equine encephalitis virus, these arearvo virus', these are virus' that have a replicative stage in the mosquito and theyamplify the amount of virus and then the mosquito can transmit that, or the tick. hendra virusis not in that group of viruses. it's in the group of paramyxovirus and none of the paramyxovirus'use mosquitoes as am amplifying host if you like. to continue on from that in the contextof what we see in the field, if we were seeing mosquitoes as playing a primary role in thetransmission of hendra virus we would be seeing hendra spillover events clustered to areasof higher mosquito density and also to times of year when there are more mosquitoes around.what we're actually seeing is that the majority of the spillover events occur in the wintermonths which is a low mosquito time.

similarly with ticks, if ticks were playinga primary role, as i say apart from the virology aspects if you like that i've just spokenabout but if ticks were playing a primary role in the practical sense we'd be seeinghendra cases clustered november/december and around far north queensland where we knowflying foxes can be affected by ticks at that time. and we're not seeing that, they're notover represented in that area. we also have a question here about dogs, andthis is from jude in brisbane and its ‘what proof is there that dogs or humans or otheranimals cannot contract the virus directly from flying foxes?' they're talking here aboutflying foxes dropping half eaten palm nuts and fruit in my yard, my dog sometimes eatwhat the flying foxes have dropped and i worry

that the dogs could contract the virus, orthat i could contract it while cleaning up those half eaten fruit nuts. it's about the evidence. there's no evidencethat that they do contract the disease straight from flying foxes. nipah virus which humetalked about before is a similar virus and in nipah virus which is not present in australia,the pig acts as an amplifying host for that and most of the human cases come from pigs.and its similar with hendra virus in australia in that the, the horse seems to act as anamplifying host for the virus and puts out lots of virus and therefore people are morelikely to contract it. we believe that you need a reasonably large amount of virus toactually get hendra virus. its not, in spite

of the cases we've seen it's not an easy diseaseto catch. with the incidence this year, we've had as i said we've had 18 properties quarantined,we've had 11 horses die, the majority of those have been in contact with other horses, andthere's no transmission except on one property, there's been no horse to horse transmission.so you really, it seems like you really need quite a lot of a virus to actually transmitit. and it's the same with humans, we've had humans in contact with horses with blood overthem without, in the previous years without personal protective equipment, and they haven'tcaught that. so i think, to think the dogs will get a, or other animals will get hendravirus from one flying fox or eating one spat or being in contact with that, we cant ruleit out but i think its unlikely based on the

evidence we have. you mentioned there a number of propertiesthat were affected, there's a question here about the similarities on those infected properties,why are there like horse husbandry - this is from the qphia, they're asking whetherthere were similarities in terms of horse husbandry, water sources, supplied pasture,horse management, grazing patterns. in terms of the transmission are you seeing any commonalitiesthere? let me talk to that. our group have historicallyalways been collecting information and bq and dpi previously as a general part of thework when there's an incident, collecting property information. one of the challengeshas been because there have been thankfully

a small number of events over the years, andthen the sample size to compare commonalities across is not very large. this year probablythe only positive you could say to come out of the cluster of hendra events is that it'sgiven us an increased sample size, we more than doubled the number of spillover eventsthat have occurred over this period of time. so we have been more formal if you like thisyear in the context of doing ip profiles on infected premises, ip meaning infected premise,and we've sought to look at aspects so what is it that makes one place more likely tohave a case horse than another place? and we've sought to look at it from the pointof view of flying foxes, and the point of view of flying fox behaviour perhaps horsebehaviour and perhaps husbandry. so in the

context of where we are at the moment in analysingthat is preliminary but there are some things that we can say by having a first look. firstlythere are no absolutes, you're not going to say that if you do this, you're going to gethendra virus, and if you do that you're not going to get hendra virus. it's all aboutprobabilities, if you do this or this is your situation you may be more likely to get hendravirus than if you do that. so the kinds of things that we're seeing,we're typically seeing are the clear presence of flying fox food resources on the property,we've typically seen evidence of recent flying fox feeding on the property. we're often seeingevidence of a dominant behavioural trait if you like in the case horse that indicatesthe dominate animal particularly around food.

and the other thing that we're seeing, notalways but we've seen at least times and perhaps often, but i need to look at the details ofthat, is this pasture aspect, is a shortage of pasture, meaning that there might be arole, an exaggerated role for a potentially hungry horse to eat stuff that it might notof eaten before. so they're the kinds of broad categories if you like with our first passof the information that we're seeing. there's another question here which i foundquite interesting about the horses immunity. this is from debra in cairns, and she wassaying are bats really to blame or is it a problem in the equine immune system. is itthat the horse that's the problem? not so much the bat.

look it's a good question and there are, hendravirus is a complex disease, it's not simply about the presence of virus and exposure ofa horse. it seems clear that horses are particularly sensitive to hendra virus in the context ofbeing more likely to be infected than any other species, and it seems quite clear aswell from what we've seen on infected premises that some horses are more likely to be susceptiblethan others and that might be an innate immunity. we all have a level of innate immunity, somebodymight get a cold at work, and we don't necessarily get a cold at work. so undoubtedly i thinkhorses as a group of animals are more susceptible to hendra virus and that's innate in the logicalaspect. and that there are individual horses that may or may not be more susceptible andthe reasons why they may or may not be we

don't know. it might simply be genetic, itmight be an infected dose for example as well, and some horses might need more to becomeinfected than others. we might now get on to the issue of cullingthat was a very big issue amongst a lot of the respondents. one of the questions hereis from wynn from helidon, she says why are flying foxes going to be culled as they werein the 1970s and 80s. culling kept the numbers under control and there were never any illnessesin livestock or humans back then. so why aren't we culling flying foxes? perhaps i can take that one… the issue ofculling is not the solution. the fact that in the fast the animals are not actually protected,they are now protected at law, as you probably

know there are four species of flying foxesin australia. the spectacled flying fox that are the restricted range animal in north queensland,little red flying foxes are a very vast range across pretty well the top end of australiaright way through to victoria, black flying foxes again similar range to the little redsand the grey headed flying foxes. now over the passage of time these animals have becomeprotected at law, so culling them is effectively prohibited. the practicalities of actuallyculling animals to protect from hendra is really not a practical solution. i have herea map which if i can just hold up for people to see… this map, make sure i've got itthe right way round… no… australia's upside down… this for those that can see it showsthe distribution of the various species of

flying foxes, so in assuming that you couldcull a species across australia, this in itself would pose significant issues. secondly theissue associated with the humane destruction and there are cruelty aspects of that. thirdlywho's going to be picking up the impacted animals. fourthly how would you actually goabout it? and fifthly and most importantly i think is we're missing the point about thebenefits these animals provide to the ecosystems in australia. if you were to remove theseanimals from the system in australia there would be a major ecological impact in to theflowering plants in australia. and it's very difficult to put an equation to that but itwould be worth millions upon millions of dollars let alone well being and lifestyle and sothe culling question is really one that is

easy to put out there, less easy to accommodate. what then of the issue of dispersal, thereis a question here from julie at gloucester, she works in the veterinary industry and isoften asked by clients why they're not culling them. she's always worried that by scaringthem away that would stress them more and that would shed the virus more, is that thecase? is that why dispersal isn't such a great form or solution. sharyn the dispersal obviously is providedfor, even though as i mentioned the animals are protected, the legislation provides forthe ability to disperse flying foxes and destroying and affect roost sites in flying foxes. ineach case they're taken on their merits so

we have to weigh up the balance between theimpact of the animal and the inherent risks. the knowledge that we now have of this particularvirus obviously weighs heavily on decision makers when they are making decisions to grantpermits, or condition permits for dispersal. hume and i have been working on particularcolonies where we've initiated dispersal activities and notably in gayndah and in barcaldine.and in both cases it is a taxing issue for a delegate to have on their mind, about therelative risk associated with flying foxes that we do know that hume's alluded to. theycarry this hendra around, they have had it ever since flying foxes and hendra have beentogether, many thousands of years, and the question in terms of the ambient conditionis what triggers this. so we do know perhaps

that in an undisturbed state we know thathendra exists, in an undisturbed state we know that hendra and flying foxes co-exist,in a disturbed state we can probably presume there is going to be an increase level ofstress associated with that disturbance, and can also speculate that at that level of stresswill increase as it does with all of us, if we're not stressed we're relatively calm,if you're stressed you get a bit head up. in flying foxes that could manifest itselfin behaviours and perhaps in an escalation of that and i refer hume of that data aroundthat. from a dispersal point of view though we don't resolve from the fact that we dohave that tool in our kit bag to look at dispersal of flying foxes, but we have to weigh up allthe pros and cons of that before we make that

decision. in relation of that, there's a question hereabout the spread of the bats to other areas with dispersal and also the worry that itwould then spread to other states, that one of the questions here is from wayne at theuniversity of adelaide, do you have any thoughts on why so far the disease has not been expressedin southern new south wales, victoria or south australia? sharyn can i come back to that question ifyou don't mind, to i add something to what clive has been saying about the culling thing.so there are ethical and biological reasons or arguments at least about culling and physiologicalarguments as well. from the point of few of

hendra control and the fundamental reasonwhy culling is not the solution is that it wouldn't be effective. flying foxes are nomadicanimals, to say that you can cull a colony and remove animals from that location justindicates the lack of understanding of knowledge of the animals and the complexity of the systemif you like. so that's the fundamental reason why culling is not an option to control hendravirus because what it is that you would just have new animals coming into the locationif you did remove the ones that were there and in the context of causing that disturbancethat movement, that flux in the population you would likely increase the opportunityfor transmissions, infected animals come in contact with naã¯ve animals and so potentiallyexacerbate the situation with or without stress.

i think another aspect is that people oftenthink the numbers of flying foxes are increasing so we should need to cull now and i thinkyour question alluded to the fact that culling had previously controlled numbers. the clearreality is that flying fox numbers aren't increasing and i think we look historicallythen its absolutely clear that the numbers have gone down over from the early 20th centuryif you like, the 1930s etc and have been stable in recent decades as i understand it. whatwe're seeing is a shift in where animals are living, so historically flying foxes livedout in more remote bushland and weren't so much urban creatures. with the disruptionof that urban bushland for a whole range of land use changes and we're increasingly seeingurbanisation of flying foxes. they are increasingly

coming into urban areas where there are morereliable food resources and they're taking advantage of that. so yes its true that peopleare seeing flying foxes in places where they haven't seen them previously, or seeing moreof them, but its not because there are more animals its just because they're coming inhere because the food resources are more reliable here than they are where they used to previouslygo. and it goes with that whole area of a one health approach and not being to separatethe wild life situation from the livestock situation and the human health situation.it truly is a complex situation and well and truly intermeshed. so what then is the solution for the largenumber of people that wrote in questions and

expressed concern about the fact that theyare living next to these bat roosts. there's a question here from sandra, she's wonderingwhether lights can actually scare away flying foxes if you've got them living next to you.there's another question here from sharon at home hill, is there anything you can sprayon the trees to stop the bats actually roosting in them? i suppose the techniques of dispersal is varied,i mean perhaps the methods that we use are both either by an individual or an entityin use of local governments. what we're looking to do is to have a more strategic approachby geographic area, so for example we're working with the gold coast council at the momentand also in mount isa to look at a sort of…

like a local government area overlay of ourplanning scheme for example, with their vegetation looking at where flying foxes cant exist,whether they be historic sites/historic roosts because some of these roosts sites have beenaround for quite a few years, even hundreds of years in some cases, and then there's newroost sites and the mobility of these animals to move from location to location. but theplan we're trying to develop here is to have like a three year time horizon which thensays for given geographic area within the local government area for example, we wouldestablish where its ok to have flying foxes and where its best not to have them and ultimatelymove toward a proactive approach to manage flying foxes before they become a big issue.so in other words everyone accepts that in

that planning scheme for example, councilwould have if you like an arrangement whereby they can initiate actions to move on flyingfoxes early rather than wait till their population expands and it becomes somewhat more problematic.because we really do empathise, and i personally have lived very close to flying foxes in northqueensland when i was in cairns and yes they are noisy, they are smelly, they poo everywhere,but and i defer, to queensland health to michael in terms of the health question, i defer tobiosecurity queensland in terms of the transmission of hendra for example. in derm's case ourjob is to sort of trying to balance the issue associated with living in close proximitywith flying foxes and i think developing one of those three year plans, developing buffersaround existing roost sites, having a proactive

approach to activities which includes noise,smoke, lights, pyrotechnics, in the right sort of place, and time and so on, of alltools that we've used to a lesser or greater extent reasonably successfully, so we're aboutsharing that information and trying to embed that in to like a local plan if i could describeit that way . if i could briefly comment then clive, inanswer to those questions there is a specifically a derm process whereby people who are feelingthat they have a problem can approach derm, approach their local council, and be partof this working towards a solution that's hopefully a win-win situation. if you can't get rid of flying foxes, andi won't go to any one specific question here

because there was a lot of questions aboutthem. if you can't get rid of the flying foxes, you've got them on your property, what precautionsdo you have to take if you have horses? you need to separate the horses out from theflying foxes, the evidence shows that there is a transmission from flying fox to horsesand horses that graze under trees, that graze trees themselves and ingest some of the spatswhich are the bits of fruit the flying foxes spit out, and potentially the droppings offlying foxes, that is the potential for the horse to get infected. and so we advise thatwhere possible where there is flying fox activity within a tree or within an area to take yourhorses away from that. you may want to fence around that area to prevent that. if that'sdifficult you may want to do that at times

when the flying fox is active you may wantto clean up under trees, but the real key to this is removing the horses and the flyingfox connection. and that includes feed as well, make sure that your feed is not underthe tree, that your water is not under the tree. where possible you provide your feedand water covered so there won't be any droppings going into that feed and water and the otherpart of that for you is to actually keep an eye on your horse. if your horse becomes sick,call a vet. one of the things about hendra virus is there are no classical signs. itcould anything could be seen to be colic it could be a nervous sign it could be a respiratorysign. even experts cant pick the difference and so you really need your vet to come inthere and test the animal, look at the animal

and for you to minimise your contact withthat animal and take good hygiene precautions while that happens, so don't allow your sonor your daughter to kiss the horse when it's sick. minimise your contact, get a vet, getit tested, take good hygiene precautions then you're minimising the risk to you. i want to add to that sharyn, i think it'simportant to remember that in the context of trees that attract flying foxes, it's notjust fruiting trees, it's flowering trees as well. so flying foxes do feed on native figtrees but they also feed on native eucalypt trees as well so flowering eucalypts as wellas fruit trees are potentially trees that need to be watched and typically the floweringand the fruiting is seasonal. it may well

be that the potential for transmission isgreater in something like a big moreton bay fig that's in full fruit simply because theamount of flying foxes and the amount of feeding activity and the potential amount of fooddebris that can fall from that tree as well as opposed to a eucalypt where there are flowers. one of the things that we have found withour data logger study recently, and it's still ongoing, is that some particular weed speciesare just magnets for flying foxes and in particular cocos palms. we've looked at a lot of thedata logging stuff we've got we're able to zoom down and see where these animals arefeeding and then go out and ground truth it. on many many occasions we seeing cocos palmsare the focus of attention of flying fox feed.

i don't know if they particular like theyor that they are eating them because there is nothing else to eat, but these little weedspecies are clearly very attractive to flying foxes. should you be chopping them down then? well look that would be my recommendation.i understand they're a declared weed species by many local authorities and i'm not evensure if it's a derm thing as well. but the other interesting thing we saw and i apologisefor digressing, another weed species was a asparagus fern or asparagus vine, ramblingover remnant vegetation, very dense, and animals were feeding on the berries in that vine.now this might be something that they don't

normally feed on but they clearly have been,we've clearly seen evidence that are feeding on it in this study so i think there are somespecific trees that are more dangerous if you like than others. we spoke about what to do for horses, whatabout now for people with properties where they've got tanks. we have a question hereand michael i might defer this one to you from greg, and he asks could we be affectedwith hendra virus through our tank drinking water because we have flying foxes in thevicinity and there are a lot of droppings on the roof area. is it possible that therain water we drink could become infected? and do they need to take precautions regardingthat.

well thank you that's a good question. i guessthere are two answers - one is a general answer about rain water and any areas where we haveopen water spaces such as swimming pools and then the specifics around this particularvirus. bats like any other animals carry bacteria and their faeces and urine can contain e.coli and that can cause gastrointestinal illness. often we travel overseas and talk about gettingtravellers diarrhea and that's a similar virus, sorry bacteria and i guess for allof us it's very important that we take good care of our water supplies. in terms of rainwater tanks they could be covered and meshed and for pools they need to make sure they'reappropriately chlorinated so that we keep the potential pathogens at bay.

in terms of the specific question though,there's no evidence that this virus survives long outside the body of the fruit bats. interms of time frame it's measured in hours so in terms of a general issue there's a verylow likelihood that the virus will survive for very long at all. and if it's in an unusualenvironment so for example if you've contaminated your hands and you wash them with soap, orsoap and water or any of the detergent products that you happen to have on hand, that willkill the virus. it's a very sensitive virus. in terms of what happens to grow the virusi think probably the other extreme it takes a great deal of sensitivity in terms of theenvironment that you grow the virus in to be able to keep it alive for periods of time.so i guess in summary the general measures

that we should be taking around protectionof our water supplies are appropriate. there's no evidence at all that any contaminationof the water supply provides a risk for hendra virus and again the reason for that is thatit is such a sensitive virus. it survives for very short periods of time outside thebody of the fruit bats and it's very sensitive to change in ph change in moisture level andjust simple detergents. can i just add to that in terms of certainlyabout the hygienic precautions, but there is no evidence that the hendra virus goesdirectly to flying foxes to humans. we have a lot of evidence that carers get up and closeand personal with the flying foxes, but there's no evidence at all that it transmits hendravirus to the people so i think that the important

message. you can't say it's ruled out, butthere's no evidence that it does. it's a good question sharyn so i think that,and i know a lot of people are concerned about it and increasingly as we use more and moretank water in broader attempts to conserve water etc. i take michael's point that it'simportant for people to realise that hendra is not a water borne disease if you like.it's not like travellers diarrhea, it's not like cholera. and secondly that moisture andtemperature are the two key determiners for hendra virus survival in the environment.as michael says under dry hot conditions the virus survives for a very short period oftime, probably less than 15 minutes. under periods of lower temperature and moistureit certainly can survive longer and i think

there's a figure in the only published paperthat explores this of up to three days in flying fox urine and fruit juice i think.one of the other aspects that we've seen is this issue of dilution. when we're doing testingof our urine samples that we collect under flying fox roosts and we often see a dilutionof one in ten as a part of the test process will be the difference between detectablevirus and not detectable virus. so dilution is clearly an issue in relation to water andi think that, and i'm speaking in relation to livestock here. the other aspect i thinkthat argues against water being a role if you like a role of transmission to horsesis that if we were seeing that a contaminated water trough was source of infection we wouldexpect to see multiple horses infected in

a paddock at the same point in time and we'venever seen that. typically we only see single horse cases, even when there are multiplehorses in the paddock. but whenever we have seen multiple cases in a paddock, it's beena succession. one horse has been infected from a source and then it's excreted virussubsequently and another horse has gotten infected and another horse. so if water werea point source we'd expect multiple horses to come down at the same time. and the finalthing i would say in relation to roofs and tank waters is that people should again forthe reasons that michael said be using a first flush device just to get rid of organic matter,pollution etc off their roof with the first rain and that first lot of water is discarded.these things are readily available commercially

or you can make them yourself with a bit ofpoly pipe and some super glue. well just on that there is a question herefrom rebecca from curra and she is asking about what litreage of water can the virussurvive and her question basically is should you have a big container, a catchment containerfor water for your horses or a smaller one, with the dilution system? does that make adifference? yeah i think again, i would say just fromfirst principles the larger the better but frankly a one in ten dilution is not verymuch. if you had a water trough or a bath tub, i can't imagine that that size or quantityof water is going to be an issue. what potentially might be more of an issue was if there weresome contaminated materials on the edge of

the horse trough or the bath tub or whatever.so i think it's important to keep good water general, water quality hygiene, change thewater regularly, clean around the edge of the trough, just those basic husbandry things. we might now get on to the topic of the vaccine,that seems to be a hot topic amongst people who have submitted questions. lisa from rockhamptonhas asked please advise on when you expect the vaccine will be commercially available,and whether it can be purchased directly or whether it can only be administered by a vet.rick i guess you're the best person to speak about the development of the vaccine at themoment. yeah the vaccine is still under development.it's being done through the csiro at the australian

animal health laboratory in geelong and initialtrials have been successful. but any vaccine requires a whole range of trials. we needto know that it's initially successful but it needs to be successful over time. so myunderstanding is that the vaccine will be available commercially, they're looking ataround about 2013, but it does depend on the efficacy trial. that is if you vaccinate yourhorse you want the vaccine not to be effective in a months time, you want it to be effectivein probably a years time as well. so they've got to go through those trials, but also youneed to ensure the vaccine is safe for horses, so it needs to be injected into horses fora period of time to see that it's safe. how it will be made available that will be upto the commercial partners within that vaccine

development. there's a question here from jeanette fromstockley she wants to know why there's no government urgency to develop this vaccine,but clearly there is a process underway. there is the government, the australian andthe queensland governments have each contributed $300,000 to the vaccine development. there'sno way that our increase in funds at this stage will increase the development becauseof the efficacy trials and because of the safety trials that need to go with it. butwhat we are looking at doing is putting money into actually being able to differentiatea vaccinated animal from an infected animal. you can understand that if we get a horsethat is positive after the vaccine is in,

we need to know whether that's a positivebecause it has hendra virus or a positive because its been vaccinated. so we are puttingmoney through the hendra virus taskforce to look at ways to differentiating those two. this question relates to that, this is owannafrom summerholm, and her question is at the moment all horses that recover from hendravirus are still euthanised due to the risk of the virus re-emerging, so my question iswhen the vaccination comes into use how will a positive antibody blood test in a horsebe distinguished from virus exposure or vaccination given that horses can change hands withoutpapers or medical history. it's part of the vaccination itself so thelaboratories that test for that are able to

distinguish between a vaccinated animal andan infected animal. it's quite a common way to do it and that will be done within thevaccine itself. i guess though the vaccine isn't solely theanswer, precaution is the most important thing here in terms of preventing the spread ofthis virus. it is. vaccines no matter how good they arearen't 100% effective and for various reasons people wont always vaccinate their horses.so it's, a vaccine is a last minute, a vaccine only works after an animal's been exposedto infection and so it's like going, in a way going in there with a bullet proof vest andsay shoot at me i'll be ok. you really, the first part of that is about prevention andso it is, if you don't get access to the virus,

then that's your safest approach. so evenwhen there's a vaccine available we will still advise that you maintain your separation betweenhorses and flying foxes and call your vet when the horse is sick, and those same messageswill come through. sure risks will be decreased but they won't be 100% eliminated. michael can i ask you is there likely to everbe a vaccine to protect humans against hendra virus? there's no vaccine against hendra virus currentlyavailable for humans either. but as we've heard the key issue here is really protectionof the horses and the vaccination of the livestock will be the prevention measure that we wouldwant to see in place and that will then stop

the virus being available if you like, orpeople being exposed to the virus, and then of course all those measures that we talkedabout before in terms of prevention. so that we would still be suggesting i suspect tokeep the water away from underneath the trees and all those things that rick's gone throughbefore. in terms of the human population, if there is any risk of exposure it's alwaysvery important to take what you make call a standard common sense approach to the managementto any exposure. so if you have got any wounds or scratches to keep them covered when you'reworking with animals. to make sure that before you eat, smoke, although we discourage smoking,but before you eat, smoke, touch your eyes, mouth, nose to wash your hands, and againsoap and detergent products are very effective,

not only against this particular virus butagainst other potential infective agents. if you haven't those available then even thewet ones or hand gels are very effective, and should be used. i think also, and thisis perhaps reflecting a little bit on my family history we always used to make a big thingof cuddling our horses and i suspect i can probably recall being one of those kids whokissed the horse on the nozzle, so i will probably get into trouble for that, but thosesorts of behaviours i think are going to be very important as we go forward, even if they're,sorry, when there is a vaccine it's going to be important to make sure we encourage childrento wash their hands when they've been near the horses and to, if you like discourageespecially if you've got sick horses, close

contact between the horse and the children.so they're the sort of general things i think that are going to be very important as wego forward. can we move there around to the testing forhendra virus in humans, there are a couple of people who as the question, why does ittake so long to establish whether or not a human exposed to a horse that's got hendravirus and has that virus, can you explain the procedure that goes on there? it's one of the things where the perceptionis you have the test and the test is for testing to see whether you have hendra virus or not.and i guess, i use an analogy in the health industry, i'm sure everyone is up to datewith their tetanus injections, often if you

get a scratch or an injury you go to see yourlocal doctor or local hospital and they say oh you need a tetanus shot before you go home.you might get some stitches have the wound cleaned, but you have the tetanus shot andsee the perception is that the tetanus shot is preventing you from getting tetanus fromthe wound that you have just suffered. nothing could be further from reality in fact thetetanus shot is really being done as a preventive strategy. so it's opportunistic immunisationto stop you getting tetanus next time you get a scratch, but won't assist with the particularinjury that you have got at that time. so i guess, the reason i mention that, is it'sthe perception that you have an injury, you have immunisation and that's going to protectyou from the situation you find yourself in.

it's very similar although somewhat differentin terms of this being an investigation rather than a treatment. with the screening thatwe do and in terms of the testing there are probably two components to that. there's atesting process we do for people that have low or moderate exposure, so those peoplewho are very unlikely to develop an illness and in that regard, there's a test done at,early on and then at 3 weeks and six weeks. the early test is done to get a baseline,so that we know whether there are any unique features of that particular person that maycause what we will call a false positive test down the track, so that we know what the baselineis as we move forward and we can certainly better understand anybody whose serology changes.any person who is however exposed and who

has a high level of exposure, or requiresspecialist care, that type of care is undertaken rapidly. with all of the events that occurwe work very closely with the other departments in biosecurity queensland and have publichealth medical officers available to meet with and counsel those people who are involved. public health medical officers, who are doctors,are doctors who have been trained in a particular area and they're aware of the stratificationprocess. they're also able to provide advice about whether you do need to see your localdoctor or have the serology tests undertaken, and those tests then allow us to track theperson over time and really are an exclusion. so they allow us to say no this person didn'tdevelop an illness. i think in recent times

there have been about 60 or 68 contacts withthis recent, sorry 68 contacts with the 2011 events that have occurred, 66 or 64 of thosehave come back in being negative in their three stage testing process, and i think thereare two people who are still waiting for their last test. so in terms of our process, we intervene veryearly to provide medial expert advice on a case by case basis and we do undertake thescreening process which is in place and does take time to come back but it's really a screeningprocess and it's a second level tool that we would use. we might now move on to dusty the dog. therewere an enormous amount of questions about

dusty the dog, he certainly captured the public'simagination, can you tell us, what was the final result of your testing on the dog thathad the hendra virus? dusty was positive for antibodies to hendravirus. i mean it is one of the unfortunate things with any disease outbreaks, particularlylike hendra virus which has a high fatality rate for horses and for humans, that animalsdie. and it's unfortunate if you're an animal lover as i am, and most people are, that horsesdie as a result of that. dusty was tested and became, and was positive for hendra virus.dusty wasn't showing any clinical signs, so he appeared quite normal. but one of the unfortunatethings about hendra virus is that it can lay dormant in an animal, and we know that fromrelated virus like nipah virus, it does i

think about 10% of animals that apparentlyget over nipah virus will get the disease again. we know a case, there was a case inhumans where a human had contact, had nervous signs and got over that after assisting aperson with horse and 13 months later that person died from hendra virus. we suspectit happens, it lays dormant in flying foxes and potentially in horses as well. and sowe can't rule out that dusty had the disease and it could lay dormant in dusty and thencome out later. we don't know the chances of that and it's probably not high but it'sthe consequences if that happens is that we know, hendra virus has killed four out ofthe seven people, and it's a family dog. and if that changed within that family and dustypotentially bit somebody or had some contact

with that, that could kill the people, itcould kill the owners, people as part of the family and visiting the family. and so itis a national policy because of that that animals that are positive for hendra virusand show antibodies are euthanised. we had a discussion, a national discussion, and thisis a real hard policy issue for us because horse, animal, any animal that's apparentlynormal, normally when you've got antibodies it shows you've got over the disease and you'reok, but with this, it doesn't necessarily mean that so we did have a national meeting,discussed it at length between all the chief veterinary officers and we ultimately madethe decision to maintain that policy of euthanasia. we then discussed it with the owners of dustyand of course it was really hard for them

to hear that news but ultimately they madethe decision themselves to have their vet euthanise dusty. kylie from rockhampton poses this questionthough, why wouldn't you keep dusty the dog alive to basically learn something from himin terms of how the virus is transmitted? yeah and that would be, obviously that wouldbe the thing you would think of straight away, this is an opportunity for us to gain someinformation but again it's like having a walking time bomb. you don't know when this mighthappen and so you can't leave a potential risk with the family. so there would be apotential then to move dusty down to a laboratory, a confined place where you can actually dothe research but if you go down to the australian

- the only place in australia where we cando that is the australian health laboratory at geelong - and if you, and they've got highcontainment so what you're looking at is an area where people enter with spray suits on.so they'll be checking dusty, dusty will be there by himself as a family dog, for therest of its life, just waiting there just to see in case it may have a disease. so it'sthe risk to the family first and then if you want to keep dusty alive it's the animal welfareimpact on dusty. and it's really doubtful whether an animal welfare committee, an animal ethicscommittee would approve that sort of thing because the impact on dusty sitting thereas a lone dog for the rest of its life, while its sort of being examined, i don't thinkit's acceptable and i don't think most of the

community would find it's acceptable. there's a question here from tracey in burdekin,what are the risks of hendra in wild dogs? do you know? well we don't know, we think that, we don'tactually know whether to what extent dogs can get hendra from flying foxes. the casewith dusty was, we believe, although again we don't know, it's possibly from flying foxes,or possibly from a horse, but we believe because mammals, because humans, and other horsesget it from horses and that horses put out a lot of virus that the most likely case inthis instance is that dusty got the infection from the horse. and so for wild dogs to gethendra virus, they'd really have to come in

contact with a horse, an infected horse. againthat is possible, we do quarantine properties that have got infections, but we can't alwaysstop wild dogs getting these. so there is a potential risk there. we suspect it's slowbut there is a risk that a wild dog could get it from a horse. and just on the subject of dogs, there werea lot of questions from cat owners about whether their cats are susceptible. cats are susceptible to hendra virus, that'sbeen tested experimentally. we've never had a case. as i said we actually tested two catsthis time. but one of the things about cats is they don't usually have much contact withhorses, and so if you get an infected horse,

the likelihood of contact between a cat anda horse is not high. but we still test cats and we still advise owners on infected propertieson properties where there is an infected horse, to separate their cat away from the horsebecause they do have a potential risk, a higher potential risk than a dog. could i comment on that sharyn? i think there'salso something to be learnt from the experiences with nipah virus in malaysia, nipah beingvery closely related to hendra virus. and there was purposely a study of cats in thevillage situation on tioman island where there was identified infection, nipah virus infectionin the flying foxes, and the cat population in the village and also in a refuge were sampledand now evidence of hendra virus was found

in that cat population with a high exposurelevel if you like. i think similarly in dogs in malaysia there were certainly dogs infectedin the context of the outbreak of nipah virus in pigs in malaysia but all those dogs wereassociated with pig farms, rather than having been infected from flying foxes in the naturalsituation. and i think that our surveillance system here in australia is so good, i meanwe have derm people, parks and wildlife people doing pig culls particularly in the proximityof flying fox colonies as part of their management. if there were any suggestion of wild dogsbeing infected and you would think logically that wild dogs in the proximity of flyingfox camps would be more likely, i think we'd be aware of it and there's no suggestion therehave been any unidentified illnesses or an

increase frequency of deaths in wild dogs. if your horse has hendra virus, there's aquestion here from helen at byron bay, she wants to know how do you know your horse hasrecovered from that virus. well if the horse has hendra virus the deathrate is about 75% so it's a really high case fatality rate for that. it's recovered ifit's back to being clinically normally but as i say the horse will still carry antibodiesand there's still a, we believe a chance that that animal will then potentially get hendravirus again. that it probably rests somewhere in the nervous system of the animal, and canthen cause death at a later stage. but the recovery rate is very low, and as i say it'spolicy nationally that even if a horse recovers,

if they've had hendra virus then they geteuthanised. and a vet would obviously be looking afterthat animal that would be so sick that the vet would know. yes the cases this year, i think all the casesdied within two days, most of them within a day, so it is a very fast acting and quitea nasty disease. well this may answer that question i'm aboutto ask here, but maree from the gold coast, she wishes to continue with pony club forher daughter, but while the hendra virus is around she's a bit frightened about doingthat. her question is how do you know that the other horses there at the pony club eventdon't have hendra and why aren't there movement

restrictions from the times when hendra isrampant? that is a good question because i mean, peopleobviously want to feel safe when they take their animals to pony club. of the nine casesthis year in queensland and the eight cases, sorry the incidents around hendra virus innew south wales, all the cases have been related to contact with flying foxes. there's beenno spread from property to property, so hendra virus is not a highly contagious disease andso we can't put movement restrictions on, in an area because of hendra virus. what wedo do though is we quarantine properties where we know there's hendra virus, or we suspectthere's hendra virus. and there's been no properties that we've been involved in frombiosecurity queensland that have later then

spread the disease and so that simple actis quite effective in actually containing the disease within that property. the issue for pony clubs i think is two fold.it's about you don't know the status of the other horses within that pony club or thatevent. and so one of the key parts of that is for event organisers not to allow sickhorses into the event. now that sounds fairly obvious but i think it needs to be a clearpolicy that that's the case, they don't do that. with hendra virus we know however thatsome animals, animals can excrete the virus when and before they show clinical signs,that's when they appear clinically normally and this is the concern i think for peoplewith pony clubs and other events. so it's

very hard to guard against that but what wedo advise is that people holding events take precautions and have plans in place. so thesorts of precautions we advise are that things like that you have a vet on standby, thatyou can quickly get a vet if a horse becomes sick, that you have an area where you canput a sick horse that's separate from other horses, that you maintain separation whereyou can between horses, that you don't share, you don't share equipment between two horses.that is if a horse then turns out later to have hendra virus you're not increasing therisk of transmission between horses. and we advise that anyone holding an event puts arisk management plan in place, they ask the question, what happens if i get hendra virus,and have some planning in place for that.

now we provide quite a bit of informationon our website and we're also really quite happy to work with organisers if they've gotany questions about how they best do that. but it's about the planning and it's about behaviourof people a that event and things like making sure that its hygiene, that you actually washyour hands in between horses, that you don't get up and close contact with other peopleshorses cause you don't know what they're going to be like. so it is a precautionary approachwe cant guarantee that any horse doesn't have hendra virus at that time but there are sensibleprecautions you can do that reduce the risk. sharyn if i can add to that. people becamevery aware of how contagious equine influenza was back in was it 2007 i think, and werevery good in trying to maintain quarantine,

movement controls etc and of course therewas a whole state-wide situation. hendra virus is not equine influenza. it is not a highlyinfectious disease, it's a highly fatal disease and people often get the two confused. it'snot highly infectious, it doesn't float on the breeze, it wont blow from one paddockto another paddock, and in fact even on infected premises, you need close and direct contactwith heavy nasal secretions or other body fluids with a case horse for transmissionto occur to a second horse. and even then it doesn't always happen, so i think that'sthe first thing. it's not a highly infectious thing, it's not going to run rampant throughthe pony club. another point is that it's true that we know from experimental studiesnow that horses that are experimentally infected

at least can excrete small amounts of virusin nasal and oral secretions for 24 - 48 hours before they show any clinical signs. but theseare very small amounts of virus and the amount of virus increases with the onset of clinicaldisease. so a horse that is excreting tiny amounts of virus before it becomes ill, inreality poses a low risk of transmission to another horse and if we adopt the kinds ofthings that rick has said then we can manage that. once the horse is clinically ill andas it approaches its terminal stage of illness, that's when the maximum risk is with virustransmission to other horses, and to people. just on that topic, quick question here frombelinda from walloon. she says what is the availability for protective suits for horseowners, where are they available, and if they

are not available why not? i don't know whether michael wants to talkabout the protection but, you don't need protective suits per say to actually to do that. if youcover your, cover any cuts that you have when you're dealing with a horse, if you have along sleeve shirt, you have jeans and you have pants, and wear gloves and take normalhygienic precautions, that's fine. if your horse is sick, it's a different thing. youactually, you call your vet and you minimise contact with the horse. if you have to havecontact, you have minimal contact you wear gloves, advised to wear a face mask and gogglesand then wash your hands when you finish. so from day to day i think dealing with ahorse you really, just take normal hygienic

precautions and if your horse is sick youcall a vet and minimise your contact and don't kiss your horse. please don't! (laughter) i guess just to follow on, one of the thingsthat's been mentioned is this concept of amplification that occurs when the horse gets sick and ithink that's a really important concept to have an understanding of. because it's thelarge amount of respiratory secretions or secretions from the mucus membranes in thenose and the mouth that really provide the opportunity for the infection to occur, andso minimising the amount of exposure to those secretions using the simple things that havebeen mentioned - the mask, the goggles, the

gloves and covering up any wounds or any scratchesif you're dealing with a sick horse - is very, very important as rick's indicated it's veryimportant to contact a local vet when you're dealing with those circumstances. but it isvery hard to become unwell when you're exposed to this virus. it's not a highly contagiousvirus, as we've said, it, in a normal hot day it probably survives at best 15 minutes,and provided you take all the right precautions the risks that are associated with caringfor horses is relatively low. having said that if you do get infected it is a very seriousillness and one that we don't have any active treatments for. so you certainly don't need a protective suitin the every day interaction with your horses.

it's only if your horse gets sick that you'dneed to get these protections. ok. a question for you clive, this is from daniel at rockhamptonand this is about who is responsible for collecting injured or dead flying foxes or bats in publicplaces and what is the procedure for the public to do so if the authorities can't get there.can you handle a dead bat in front of you? we recommend that people don't on the basisof that as we've heard that getting bitten or scratched, an injured bat that you mightpick up its tendency is to scratch or bite you, that's inherently a risky proposition.dead things in public places are principally local government and our offices will assistas well. there's also a series of registered animal, sort of like people that deal withdifficult animals like magpies or possums

or things like that, that exist in areas andthey are able to pick up animals as well. it's not advisable to handle sick flying foxesat all. you would call derm and they would get a carer because flying foxes do carrya disease called lyssavirus which again is a rabies like virus and is completely differentto hendra but is fatal. so i think the message is if you have a sick flying fox certainlycall derm or call rspca and they'll get in contact with a carer who is generally vaccinatedagainst lyssavirus and that flying fox can then be handled and if it can, and nursed. well they're the main questions that peoplehave asked. i'll just get to a few specifics now if you wouldn't mind from people. zoehere from burrum town, she wants to know is

it safe to move my horse into an area wherethere is a flying fox nursery, and we've spoken about precautions, but she asks is it safefor him to graze in a paddock where flying foxes are? generally i think it is, i mean flying foxesare everywhere almost, so the answer to that i think is yes. the precautions are wherethe flying foxes may be gathering around flowering trees or fruiting trees. but also it is aboutmaking sure your feed and water are covered, so that any droppings don't go into that feedand water. but i don't think we should be frightened about flying foxes. they're partof our environment we live with them, horses have lived with them for a while as well so,i wouldn't think they'd be any major risks.

could i add to that sharyn thanks? look insome of our research we've done we've looked at trying to understand what the level ofcontamination if you like, urine, faeces and food debris associated with feeding flyingfoxes is in relation to trees and it seems quite clear it stops effectively at the dripline of the tree. so if flying foxes are feeding in a fig tree the urine, the faeces, the fruitdebris effectively falls underneath that tree, and there is a little if anything in the restof the paddock, certainly if there's just pasture. the only time we see a low levelof additional debris might be if they take fruit from the tree with the fruit on it andgo and eat it in another tree a little way away. but it's primarily that food, the treethat's being fed in that poses the primary

risk and if horses are excluded from thatarea that will be effective. another question from robyn at casino, shewants to know what effect is expected in hendra infections with the weather warming up. arepasture fed horses in heavily tread environments more susceptible to the virus? yeah looks this goes to why we had such aremarkable event this year and rick and michael have talked about it at the beginning wherewe have 17 events in this year than in the previous 16 or 17 years we've only had 14events. and there are two things we know about what happened differently and what was differentthis year and that's basically that more flying foxes were excreting the virus and they wereexcreting virus for longer than what we believe

that they could excrete virus on the basisof experimental studies etc. what we don't know is why more flying foxes were excretingvirus this year and why they were excreting it for longer. there are a number of hypothesis and findingthat out, the why's is a primary focus on the accelerated research funding from thetaskforce. but there are a number of plausible hypothesis about why that might have been,and certainly they relate to the extreme weather events for the last couple of years that haveimpacted nomadic movement of flying foxes impacted feeding behaviour, and food availabilityin general. another one of them is the climatic changes. was it that the cooler, milder, damperweather allowed the virus just to survive

that little bit longer and so increase theopportunity for horses to become infected. another one of the hypotheses is that is therea change in species composition and in fact this goes back to a question you asked earlierabout why queensland and new south wales and not victoria. previously 13 of the 14 eventshave been in queensland, this year we saw almost an equal number in queensland and newsouth wales. one of the things that's happening is that there has been over the last decadeor more, an increasing number of black flying foxes in new south wales. and one of the hypothesesis this changing species composition might be part of the reason why there were morecases this year and more in new south wales. so really there are a number of factors andthe climate thing is one of them that may

or may not be associated. these are hypotheses,they need to be tested, and we need to explore the relationships. one thing is for sure ithink it's going to be a multi-causal thing, there's going to be a number of factors thatwill come together to make the kind of year that we saw this year, this exceptional year,hopefully a rare event. another interesting question for you, oh sorryclive did you want to add something there. to add to that, in the sense that we've experiencedexactly the same thing i think if i can refer to gayndah. we've experienced an influx inof little red flying foxes and they have never been there before, in a very small concentratedarea next to the township, when i was up there and i've been up there twice now is that they'rein the creek cause to the north and to the

south, its relatively small, but that riversystem had been heavily impacted by the floods. so i think as hume said the issue, it wassuch a big year so many things could of changed the flowering patterns, the food sources,the mobility of the flying foxes. so we are experiencing quite a odd year, not a normalyear, and of course this is pushing our emphasis to managing the flying foxes where they endup and in this case as we've heard before that them setting up roosts and colonies inurban environments creates a bigger conflict and its not necessarily just the hendra questionit's more the question of discomfort, smell, the noise and so on living in close proximityto the animals. if this year was an extraordinary year whatdo you expect will happen next year? do you

think things will go back to a more normalpattern in relation to the virus? i think it's going to be a combination of researchthat hume's talking about. we've been monitoring flying fox population and distribution formany years, and just working that out, a lot of the predisposing factors, we know theirrange as i've shown on the map earlier today is quite vast and we do predict that for examplethat little red flying foxes will be heading back up north now. they should be headingback to the flowering trees in north australia. so yes i think the short answer is we wouldexpect it to shift back to some normality, but we'll continue to monitor to get a betterhandle on this as well. can i comment on that again sharyn again?look i think our group has always had an understanding

of, to understand the infection dynamics inflying foxes, what drove the amount of virus and the times when the virus is there in flyingfoxes and so when it might be excreted, to understand that you have to understand thebiology of flying foxes and the ecology, how do they relate to their environments, whatwere the pressure on them etc. so we've done that in the past, we are proposing to increasethat understanding and interaction, understanding of the interaction between the animals andtheir environment and the climatic systems with some of this accelerated research that'scome from the task force and to specifically bring in wildlife biologists, to specificallybring in climate people etc so that we can seek to tease out this association betweenclimate change, between food resource availability

between nutritional stress and foraging behavioursand in fact some dynamics and stress. i've just got this specific question herefrom greg at west lake, and i might defer that to you michael. we are under the flightpath of flying foxes and they regularly drop their excrement over our home and our garden.what is the risk to my family's health when cleaning up the mess or just in general? i think that comes back to the conversationwe were having before where we know there's no evidence that the hendra virus can be passedon from flying foxes to people. so in terms of the risk, there isn't really a risk. thereare a whole range of things that are at play here including the fact that the excrementif it does have the virus in it would only

last 15 minutes, and if you're cleaning upit would probably last less depending on what you're doing in terms of cleaning. so i thinkin terms of the overall risks they don't, there is no risk. having said that wheneveryour cleaning up excrement from any animal, i think the risks would really be associatedwith what else might be there and obviously you need to take appropriate precautions whenyour cleaning, and making sure that you don't handle any of the excrement and after you'vedone the cleaning up that you take normal precautions in terms of washing your handsand making sure you certainly do that before you eat food, before you don't smoke, andin terms of touching any mucosal surfaces such as eyes and nose. so i think it's reallya good lesson for us that although there are

these concerns what it really highlights isthat you should continue to do what you do normally in terms of what's good practicein terms of the things you undertake while cleaning. there's a question here from elizabeth atforsdale, she's basically saying she's a wild life carer of marsupials and bats, she's beenhandling sick and injured bats for many years without being sick. her question i guess isthis just a media beat up, all the frenzy and hysteria this year or are all of you concernedabout this year particularly? is it a media beat up or not? the media's certainly had an interest in itbut no it's not a media beat up. i mean we

are talking about a disease with a high fatalityrate, four out of seven people have died from it, 75% of horses that contract the diseasedie, and so it is, and we don't, we are still learning about it and so its that level ofdeadliness of the virus and the uncertainty around it that i think makes people interested,and people want to make themselves safe, and they want to know the ways to make themselvessafe and so they can feel secure and enjoy their horses and their dogs and their lives.so i think it's around the deadliness of the disease and the uncertainty that's causingsome of the media interest. can i comment again sharyn? look i think thisis a good question and i think it brings the wildlife carer context into the situation,and many people are wildlife carers in the

community and frankly it's an under appreciatedand an under acknowledged activity. in the context of flying foxes particularly, i thinkwhen people have concerns about risks of direct transmission from flying foxes to people,then they need only to look at the group of people who are flying foxes carers, and thatwould be the group that are at the highest risk of direct transmission because they regularly,even though they do take appropriate precautions, they do regularly come in contact with bodyfluids of flying foxes. so i think it does, i think that opinion does help to keep incontext the concern about at least flying fox human direct transmission. well i think we've only got about five minutesleft, what i might get from all of you if

you could just sum up or give to us what youthink is the important messages that should come out of a forum like today that peopleout there watching and listening today need to take home from this particular forum. clivemaybe we'll start with you. i think the point taken for me is a greaterappreciation of the issue at hand here which is the connection between flying foxes andthe environment and the benefits that they provide to the environment. but equally atthe same time an acknowledgement of the fact that they do carry hendra, the fact that theycan harm you, and lastly is an awareness of that and basically work with us as an agencyto help manage these animals across their range.

hume would you like to add? yes look i think my key take home messageis probably a broader perspective and it goes back to that one health thing that you mentionedin my bio, and really that is the disease emergence from wildlife is an ecological process.so typically where we have disease emergence from wildlife and hendra is one example ofthat. you have a virus and a host of coexistent in a natural context for eons. something changesthat allows the virus to spill out of that natural host and that typically is in thecontext of an encroachment into a natural environment, fragmentation of a natural environment,increased opportunity for contact, disrupted natural behaviours of animals so its in thatcomplex situation that diseases emerge from

wildlife. and i guess my message and its probablynot one that people might like to hear is that there is no simple fix to this situation,really and i have absolute sympathy for people, for families that are impacted by hendra virus. we have to manage this at the interface. wehave to manage the spillover from flying foxes to horses at that interface by doing the kindsof things that bq says in terms of sensible husbandry and we have to manage the spilloverfrom horses to humans at that interface by doing the kinds of things again that bq andqueensland health are saying in relation to those precautions there. until and when aneffective vaccine becomes available, i think we still do need to have an understandingof that risk management. i think as rick said

earlier we can't put all our eggs in the vaccinebasket and think great we've vaccinated don't worry. hendra and vaccination are interestingin that you don't have a certain level of vaccination in the population that will protectthe rest because it doesn't transmit readily from horse to horse. if your horse isn't vaccinatedits risk of being infected with hendra isn't changed by whether or not somebody else'shorse is vaccinated, so we need that risk approach. dr symons? in terms of hendra virus, there is a lot wedon't know. but there's also a lot we do know now and particularly thanks the work thathume's being doing and the csiro have been

doing and so it is that be aware but not alarmed.basically there are ways that as a horse owner that as a person you can actually manage therisk of hendra virus and that is around our key messages about keeping your horses awayfrom vets, oh sorry away from flying foxes. so it's the tools you've got to manage yourrisks so that should perhaps give people some confidence that there is a risk out therebut it can be managed. just i might add we've had a lot of support through the horse industriesand through the australian veterinary association, so this is just not a government thing. they'retaking out the message there that we are seeing behavioural changes in vets and we are seeingchanges in the industries and so it's about working together, finding the risks and thendealing with those risks. so the picture with

the vaccine on the horizon this is not a badmessage, the things we are getting on top of it. and if you think about some other diseasewe deal with in the world like ebola and things like that, we still had to have an effectivevaccine for ebola, it took ages to diagnose it. this is really high speed science althoughit may be frustrating to you, it is high speed science. we're doing things very quickly withthis disease, from an unknown disease to a disease we're getting a lot of knowledge about.a vaccine on the horizon, this is very good stuff. and professor cleary, from a health perspectivehow would you like to sum up? i guess from my perspective, there's no evidencethat the virus to transferred to people except

through contact with infected horses. thatall of the preventative measures that we've talked about this afternoon are very importantand they're the key things that we have been doing and will continue to do and perhapsi'd also like to echo a positive note in that i think the industry and the government departmentsthat look after, biosecurity and the other areas, have done a remarkable job in termsof our perspective that would seem less and in this case no exposure that's at a highrisk level this year. and that's really been through the advocacy and the engagement withthe industry and i think the industry should be commended for the work it's done. well as you all say working together is thekey, that is the key to stopping to spread

of this virus. we have almost ran out of timeladies and gentlemen but just before we go i'd just like to point out a couple of websitesthat you can go to if you do want more information, biosecurity, its www.biosecurity.qld.gov.auon the health side of things www.health.qld.gov.au and from the derm perspective www.derm.qld.gov.au.and of course there's also these information booklets available as well. lots of informationin there about how to prevent the spread of hendra virus. so we do hope you have all enjoyed today'sdiscussion "flying foxes your animals and you". this is available on the website tohave a look at again if you'd like to go back and hear what the panel has said. thank youvery much for your time this afternoon. we

do appreciate it, and we do hope we've answeredall your questions. i've tried to get to as many as i can but as i said we couldn't answerthem all. thank you very much.