Avian influenza in Australia: a summary of 5 years of wild bird surveillance

Grants

Funding Acknowledgements

The Program depends on the participation, expertise and logistic support from a large number of people from a range of organisations and properties, including the Australian Department of Environment; Birdlife Australia; Gidgealpa Station; Innamincka Station; Melbourne Water; Parks South Australia; Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation; Santos; state and territory bird banding groups and wildlife/shorebird groups (South Australian, Queensland and Victorian Wader Study Groups); hunter groups and Wetlands International. We would like to specifically acknowledge Sue Martin, Marianne Douglass, Teresa Wilson, Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment, Tasmania; Kerri Bruce, Susie Daglas, Kelly Davies, Debbie Eagles, Wendy Ha, Peter Mohr, Songhua Shan, Paul Selleck, Vicky Stevens, Stacey Valdeter, Som Walker, James Watson, Frank Wong, Diagnosis Surveillance and Response team at the Australian Animal Health Laboratory; Melinda Frost, New South Wales Department of Primary Industries; and the Biosecurity Science Laboratory Team, Biosecurity Queensland, Department of Agriculture and Fisheries for their valuable work on the analysis and characterisation of avian influenza samples. We would also like to thank to Tim Kerlin, Chris Rodwell, Josef Schmidt and Cassandra Wittwer, Australian Government Department of Agriculture, and Fred van Gessel, the University of Newcastle for wild bird sample collection. Thank you to Chris Barker and John Worsley for assistance with the final images. A special thanks to Chris Bunn, Australian Government Department of Agriculture; Leesa Haynes; and Keren Cox-Witton and Karen Magee, Wildlife Health Australia. The Program was supported with funding from the Australian Government Department of Agriculture; the Wildlife Exotic Disease Preparedness Program; National Health & Medical Research Council; Australian Biosecurity Cooperative Research Centre; National Institute of Health (NIH contract NIAIDHHSN266200700010C) and the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC Project no. PRJ-008337; 2011-2012). The Melbourne WHO Collaborating Centre for Reference and Research on Influenza is supported by the Australian Government Department of Health. Significant in-kind support is provided by participating agencies, without which The Program would not be possible. The authors would like to thank the reviewers for their valuable comments.