A sick northern giant petrel found at Bennetts Beach near Hawks Nest, on the NSW mid-north coast, has returned a preliminary positive for H5 avian influenza, the first suspected case of the virus in New South Wales. The result is not yet confirmed.
The preliminary test was run at the state's Elizabeth Macarthur Agricultural Institute, and samples have gone to the CSIRO's Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness for confirmation of the subtype. Authorities suspect the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain. The bird was a wild migratory seabird; no poultry or captive birds in NSW have tested positive, and no mass wildlife deaths have been reported.
“This latest development is incredibly concerning for both agriculture and for wildlife," the NSW Agriculture Minister, Tara Moriarty, said at a press conference on Friday. "But NSW and the rest of the country have been preparing for this moment for many years.”
If confirmed, the Hawks Nest bird would be Australia's sixth H5 detection and make NSW the third state affected. Western Australia has four confirmed cases and South Australia one, all in wild migratory seabirds, according to the CSIRO. The first mainland detection was a brown skua in WA on 20 June. No commercial poultry has been infected anywhere in the country, no birds have been culled over H5N1, and there are no trade restrictions on Australian poultry exports.
The strain is H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b, the version circulating in birds and mammals worldwide. Until last month Australia was the last continent free of it, the World Organisation for Animal Health said in its notification of the WA case. The state has run a coordination centre at Orange since 19 June, set up a dedicated call centre, and trained more than 500 additional staff for surveillance. "Our focus now is to increase surveillance and to detect any further infections early," the NSW Chief Veterinary Officer, Dr Jo Coombe, told the Newcastle Herald.
On the health question, the Australian Centre for Disease Control says the risk to people is low and that the best protection is to stay away from sick or dead birds. There is no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the virus anywhere in the world. The more immediate exposure is to producers: during earlier H7 outbreaks, biosecurity measures such as housing free-range hens indoors carried costs that could reach consumers, La Trobe University's Robyn Alders told SBS last month.
For now the detection is a wild-bird case, and a suspected one. The confirmatory result from the CSIRO will settle the subtype. The public has been asked to report sick or dead birds to the Emergency Animal Disease Hotline on 1800 675 888 rather than handle them.
