Coronavirus

Dr HARVEY (Newland) (15:19): As we speak, there is an army of researchers around the globe, including right here in Australia and South Australia, working hard to find new ways to treat and prevent COVID-19. The virus responsible for COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, is almost certainly zoonotic, with most evidence thus far pointing to its origin in a species of bat that then found its way to humans via a kind of anteater, the pangolin.

The COVID-19 pandemic is the third outbreak of a coronavirus in the last 20 years. In the early 2000s, there was the SARS outbreak and, in 2012, MERS came about. In fact, both of these had significantly higher mortality rates than COVID-19 but were much more easily contained and less efficient at transmission, thus avoiding pandemics. What makes COVID-19 of such great concern is that, as the virus has not been seen before by the human immune system, there is no immunity in the community and thus the virus spreads with ease.

While 80 per cent of people only have mild symptoms, the ease with which this virus can spread throughout the community is of significant concern for those likely to experience severe disease. Moreover, given that this virus is novel, there are no known antiviral treatments or vaccines. In fact, at present, the only known protection against COVID-19 is social distancing and the control measures that support it, which is why what we are all doing right now is so important because for now this is all that there is.

Just as an aside, given that we are dealing with an infectious disease for which there is no vaccine, for all the anti-vaxers out there, this is what your world would look like all the time. Just as an example, as a point of comparison, it is estimated that on average the number of people an individual with COVID-19 will transmit the virus to—and these are best guess numbers at the moment—is between two and 3.5 people. Compare this to the vaccine-preventable measles where an infected individual will on average transmit the virus to another 12 to 18 people. In light of what we are facing now, imagine that world.

But while we are all doing our best to slow the spread of COVID-19, to push the peak of cases in South Australia as far into the future as possible, the army of researchers I alluded to earlier is working hard to find new measures to combat the virus on a number of fronts. I would like to highlight a few examples happening in South Australia.

Just yesterday we heard about a local coordinated research effort, funded by the Hospital Research Foundation and the Women's and Children's Hospital Foundation, which is bringing together virologists, immunologists, clinicians and health workers from the University of Adelaide and our hospitals. This effort, led by Dr Branka Grubor-Bauk, Professor Simon Barry, Associate Professor Michael Beard, Professor Guy Maddern and Jessica Reid, is working hard to understand why some people suffer more severe disease than others. This work will be important for understanding the immune response to the virus that will inform the global effort to develop novel drug treatments and a vaccine.

The South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute, led by Professor Steve Wesselingh, hosts a wide range of COVID-19 projects, including:

work on understanding the early stages of infection and how this might impact transmission and the epidemiology of the virus;

work that seeks to help further inform our hospitals' preparedness for elderly COVID-19 patients;

a compound that may help block the intracellular replication of the virus in human cells;

work to help inform the broader public health response; and

evidence-based mental health training during these challenging times.

I would like to thank Professor Caroline Miller, Associate Professor Maria Inacio, Professor Chris Proud, Dr Kirk Jensen, Dr Johan Verjans, Joep Van Agteren and their teams for their work.

The search for a vaccine is currently underway at Flinders University as part of a project, led by Professor Nikolai Petrovsky, who has developed a model using artificial intelligence to predict what a successful vaccine candidate might look like—a technique used successfully in the past to design a vaccine against swine flu. This work, based on the previous experience with SARS, is looking to interfere with the interaction between the virus's spike protein and the human ACE receptor.

This is only a glimpse of what is happening here in South Australia, let alone the world, but what I want to do is acknowledge and thank the tireless efforts of all researchers around the world. These men and women offer hope during these difficult times that we will get through this crisis, save lives and consign COVID-19 to the annals of history.