The CSIRO wants to import live foot-and-mouth disease virus for vaccine development as Australia strengthens its biosecurity capacity.
The government research agency made the submission at a public hearing into the adequacy of Australia's biosecurity measures and response preparedness.
The live virus would be used by the Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness, a high-security lab in Geelong, to develop an mRNA vaccine.
Senior principal research scientist Wilna Vosloo told the senate committee while initial testing didn't require the live virus, it would eventually be needed.
"The difficulty in doing the full range of testing that you would need to do is limited by the fact that we don't have access to the live virus," Dr Vosloo said.
"We will have to go elsewhere if we want to test the vaccine.
"The ultimate test for a vaccine is to challenge the animals and see that they are indeed protected."
While there are animal vaccines available for lumpy skin disease and foot-and-mouth disease, mRNA vaccines are considered cheaper and quicker to produce.
Having access to the live virus would also allow the research team to explore avenues beyond an mRNA vaccine.
The centre for disease preparedness has already successfully imported lumpy skin disease live virus into Australia.
It is also looking at importing goat pox and sheep pox live viruses.
Stringent process
The importation of foot-and-mouth disease virus is prohibited without an import permit and no official application has been made to the Federal Department of Agriculture.
National Animal Disease Preparedness coordinator Chris Parker explained the process to approve a live virus import permit to the senate committee.
Dr Parker said there would be an assessment of the centre's facilities to ensure they met the highest, most current standards for the importation and holding of such a virus.
"We would have to ensure that facilities were absolutely top notch before we even contemplate doing something like this," he said.
Mr Parker said a risk assessment would need to be done and if the department felt comfortable with the facilities, only then would it consider approving the permit.
The checks and balances need to be in place to prevent an outbreak of the virus from the high security lab.
Australia remains free of lumpy skin disease and foot-and-mouth disease.
Trade relations
Importing live virus could potentially impact Australia's trade relationships.
Agricultural Trade Group acting deputy secretary Nicola Hinder said the process would need to be approached in a careful and considered way.
"We would need to predicate that with a very large communication targeted strategy and campaign to our trading partners to actually explain the basis upon which we were importing the virus," she said.
"There will be some trading partners that would automatically jump to the immediate assumption that because Australia has imported the virus, we effectively have the virus and so therefore, we're looking for the vaccine.
"Sometimes those are the much harder perceptions to be able to counteract by communication."
