African testing ground proving disease detection breakthrough

The portable device, known as Mic, for magnetic induction cycler, is a polymerase chain reaction machine that uses a patented technology to speed up the same PCR test the world became familiar with during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Mic detects disease agents through the presence of its genetic material or part thereof, even if the animal is no longer infected.

With the small machine, Dr Costello said 192 tests could be undertaken in under an hour.

"We bounced it across 4000 kilometres of roads in South Africa without loss of performance or the need for calibration and it wasn't affected by heat or cold," he said. "I think every pharmacy and vet lab, even cattle stations to a certain extent, would have a use for it."

He described bricks and mortar laboratories based in urban centres as "not very ambulatory", taking days to get samples to and results from.

"If foot and mouth or lumpy skin disease hits, it'll be beyond the Tropic of Capricorn before we get a handle on it," he said. "We've got such a vet shortage in Australia, this is an investment in something that gives you a capable disease response network."

Dr Costello said he'd been at an emergency animal disease response conference in Canberra when he heard of the device being promoted by an Australian company, D'Central Research & Diagnostics, who said the technology was being used in the human sphere but they wanted to develop it for veterinary purposes.

He had been in Africa on several occasions since 2012, where he said wildlife was appreciated as a reservoir for diseases, and went back this year with the device, testing for trichomonas while doing bull breeding evaluations for soundness.

"We ran assays that night and started getting positives - we would have waited a week for labs to get back to us with results," he said. "I can see here in Australia we could sheath test bulls in a crush to improve productivity - I'm very excited about it, going forward."

Dr Costello rattled off numerous examples of possible usage across endemic and exotic diseases, and said the machine could also be used as a verification tool in the face of international trade accusations.

He was perplexed by what he said were closed doors when he approached the Queensland government for financial support for a statewide training roll-out, costed at under $1.5m.

"We wanted funding to develop the concept but nothing's happened at all," he said. "The government put $22m in its budget to bolster biosecurity and I'm blowed if I know where that went - all you see are doors closed and a message to call a hotline."

When contacted, Agriculture Minister Mark Furner supplied a cryptic response.

"The government will always engage with industry and we have a proud record of supporting agriculture in Queensland, however we don't discuss specific proposals, which may be commercial-in-confidence," he said.

Dr Costello said it was important for Australia not to be reactive in the space.

"You don't put a smoke alarm in your house after it's burnt down, do you," he said.