The Victorian Department of Agriculture says it has confirmed avian influenza (bird flu) at an egg farm in Meredith, Victoria following an investigation of poultry deaths at the property. Samples have been sent to the Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness to determine the strain of bird flu.
Bird flu is a highly contagious complex viral infection in birds. There are different strains – the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) causes severe symptoms and sudden death of all birds affected, and the low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI) causes few or no symptoms and can go undetected.
In Australia, wild birds are the natural host, with some carrying LPAI with no symptoms of the disease. The annual migration of wild birds is an ongoing source of disease introduction. Infected birds spread the virus through saliva, nasal secretions, and faeces.
People can’t be infected by consuming cooked chicken meat or eggs.
The department has quarantined the infected farm and established an exclusion zone around it. It is also conducting a disease investigation, which includes detailed tracing of all movements related to the infected farm.
Ingham’s told the ASX it doesn’t have any commercial broiler farms in the affected region, so there are no impacts on its operations or supply chain.
As a precaution, Ingham’s has restricted access to all its Victorian operations.
The ag department said ongoing outbreaks of variant, H5N1, have increased the level of risk of HPAI viruses in Australia. While there have been some outbreaks, they have been quickly detected and stamped out so only a small number of farms have been affected.
