Scientists in Melbourne, Australia, have successfully grown the coronavirus from a patient sample.

It's the first time the virus has been grown in a cell culture outside China.

The lab-grown virus is set to be used as an antibody test on patients who don't show symptoms of the virus.

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Scientists in Melbourne, Australia, have successfully grown the Wuhan coronavirus from a patient sample, which could help provide international experts with crucial information to beat the virus. It's the first time the virus has been grown in a cell culture outside China.

The scientists come from the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity — a joint venture between the Royal Melbourne Hospital and the University of Melbourne.

Dr. Julian Druce, the virus-identification laboratory head at the Doherty Institute, said the lab-grown coronavirus was a major breakthrough as it would allow accurate investigation and diagnosis of the virus around the world.

"Chinese officials released the genome sequence of this novel coronavirus, which is helpful for diagnosis; however, having the real virus means we now have the ability to actually validate and verify all test methods, and compare their sensitivities and specificities — it will be a game changer for diagnosis," 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 Organization in Europe."

The virus was grown from a patient sample that arrived on Friday at the Royal Melbourne Hospital's Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory, at the Doherty Institute. "We've planned for an incident like this for many, many years and that's really why we were able to get an answer so quickly," the Doherty Institute's deputy director, Dr. Mike Catton, said in a statement.

It is set to be used to create an antibody test to detect the virus in patients who haven't shown symptoms of coronavirus and weren't aware they had it.

"An antibody test will enable us to retrospectively test suspected patients so we can gather a more accurate picture of how widespread the virus is, and consequently, among other things, the true mortality rate," Catton said, adding that it would also help assess the effectiveness of trial vaccines.

The institute posted a video showing the lab-grown virus in culture:

More than 4,500 people have been infected with the coronavirus, and more than 100 people have died as a result. In Australia, there are five confirmed cases of the coronavirus – four in Sydney and one in Victoria, the ABC reported.

Last week, the University of Queensland was asked by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus. "The team hopes to develop a vaccine over the next six months, which may be used to help contain this outbreak," Paul Young, the head of the university's School of Chemistry and Molecular Biosciences, said in a statement at the time. "The vaccine would be distributed to first responders, helping to contain the virus from spreading around the world."

The Smart Traveller website, handled by the Australian Government's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, has advised Australians to "reconsider" their need to travel to China.