Scientists from the Department of Defence and the University of Melbourne have won two innovation awards for disease forecasting.
The Defence scientists recognised at the CIVSEC 2018 Congress and Exposition were Tony Lau, Peter Dawson, Alex Skvortsov and Ralph Gailis, along with Melbourne University co-researchers James McCaw and Rob Moss.
Minister for Defence Industry, Christopher Pyne congratulated the group, saying the awards recognised a unique capability.
“This is an exciting development, which aims to predict the outbreak of disease so appropriate health management and prevention measures can be put in place,” Mr Pyne said.
“Last year in Australia, we had over 230,000 confirmed cases of influenza, which costs the economy millions of dollars each year.”
He said besides providing a forecasting capability for public health authorities, the innovative system developed by the group could be used by Defence to protect troops against biological threats and pandemics.
“If we can reliably predict the impact of a seasonal epidemic, we can allocate medical support and resources more effectively to minimise its impact,” Mr Pyne said.
He said the newly-developed system was made up of a detection tool (EpiDefend) and a forecasting tool (EpiFX) that uses health and environmental data to produce a near real-time assessment of the likely presence of disease and how it might continue to spread.
Mr Pyne said the researchers were awarded both the CIVSEC 2018 National Innovation Award and the CIVSEC 2018 Award for Disaster Relief, Emergency Management and Humanitarian Services.
