Bali-headquartered software developer, Mitrais, has been commissioned by CSIRO Livestock Industries' Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL) to deploy a web-based veterinary reporting system which is destined to play a strategic role tracking avian influenza (AI) in Indonesia.

The development of InfoLab Plus and its planned deployment in Indonesia by mid-year comes five years after avian, or bird, flu, caused the death of more than 114 Indonesians who came into contact with infected poultry.

In a staged roll-out, InfoLab Plus will initially provide Indonesian veterinary authorities in seven regional diagnostic laboratories with a web-based application that AAHL project manager, Dr Peter Durr, describes as of one of the most advanced systems in the Asian region.

In a further stage, it is intended Mitrais will also produce a USB memory stick version of the application, called InfoLab Lite, which can be used with any computer. This will allow any of the Indonesian District agricultural offices - of which there are 440, many without Internet access - to upload standardised data from internet cafes, for an integrated country-wide view of AI which is now endemic.

Funding for the reporting system and the supporting IT infrastructure for Indonesia has been supplied principally by the Australian Government Overseas Aid Program – AusAID – through its Public Sector Linkage Program, with additional funding from the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations.

Dr Durr explains that AAHL commissioned Mitrais to develop a reporting engine for the InfoLab Plus application, using Crystal Reports, and to adapt it to Indonesian conditions.

InfoLab Plus will replace a Microsoft Access reporting system ('InfoLab'). This operated in a standalone environment, did not use standardised reporting and required manual editing of data to achieve consistency. "The integration of Crystal Reports with the application will provide flexible reporting in a variety of export formats," Dr Durr said.

InfoLab Plus is a web-based system that allows the users to log submissions, enter test results and produce reports.

AAHL is a World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) reference laboratory for AI. As such it has a major role in providing diagnostic support for national veterinary laboratories in the region, Dr Durr explained.

InfoLab Plus is currently in user acceptance testing. It is envisaged that it will become the national system for AI reporting for Indonesian veterinary labs in June this year.

Dr Durr said the selection of Mitrais to extend the functionality of the application and to enhance it in the future was opportune geographically given that his Indonesian counterpart Dr Soegiarto, who is responsible for the regional veterinary laboratory in the country’s southeast, is based in Denpasar.

"Mitrais also responded most professionally to our RFP and has focused carefully on our needs," Dr Durr said.

AAHL is a national facility, located in Geelong, Victoria, and is managed by CSIRO within the Division of Livestock Industries. The facility is funded by the Australian Government through CSIRO and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF).