The CSIRO Australian Animal Health Laboratories (AAHL) is a world-class biological research, diagnosis, surveillance and response institution situated on the outskirts of Geelong, Victoria. As part of our research into themes of epidemiology and disease as part of our upcoming 2013 production at the CSIRO Discovery Centre, we visited AAHL and met with some of their most experienced staff over two days. AAHL works on a broad palette of animal health issues, ranging from those with potentially catastrophic economic impact, such as possible foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks in livestock, to issues whose impact predominantly concerns human health, including their high-profile discovery of and research into the Hendra virus. In the case of an outbreak, AAHL has the capacity to screen ten thousand samples per day, and offers laboratory space that operates at the highest level of biosecurity possible in order to work with pathogens of near-universal lethality.
