The researchers at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Melbourne said on Wednesday they would share the sample, which was grown from an infected patient, with the World Health Organisation and laboratories around the world.
"This is a step, it's a piece of the puzzle that we have contributed," Doherty Institute Deputy Director Mike Catton told reporters, while noting the development alone would not turn the tide in the battle against the virus.
The flu-like virus broke out in the central Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of 2019. While China has since moved to lock down most of Hubei province, which has a population around the same as Italy, the virus has still spread to more than a dozen countries from France to the United States.
A lab in China had successfully grown the virus but had released only the genome sequence, not the sample itself, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported.
Raina MacIntyre, who runs the Kirby Institute's Biosecurity Research Program, said the creation and sharing of the virus sample would hasten the development of potential vaccines, as drugs could be tested on animals injected with the disease.
"More people are able to culture the virus, they can use the information to develop drugs, vaccines, and better characterise the nature of the virus and the transmission," MacIntyre told Reuters by telephone.
As well as contributing to the creation of a vaccine, the Australia-grown sample could be used to generate an antibody test, which would allow detection of the virus in patients who had not shown symptoms, the Doherty Institute said.
"Having the real virus means we now have the ability to actually validate and verify all test methods, and compare their sensitivities and specificities", the Doherty Institute's virus indentification laboratory head, Julian Druce, said in a statement.
"The virus will be used as positive control material for the Australian network of public health laboratories, and also shipped to expert laboratories working closely with the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Europe."
China confirmed on Tuesday that the national death toll had risen to 132 on Tuesday, with 5974 confirmed cases. The virus spreads in droplets from coughs and sneezes and has an incubation period of up to 14 days.
The Australia-grown virus sample would be used to generate an antibody test, which would allow detection of the virus in patients who had not shown symptoms, as well as contributing to the creation of a vaccine, the institute said. The virus was grown from a patient who had arrived at the institute on January 24.
