The highly contagious H5N1 strain of bird flu has officially been detected in Australia, marking the final continent to be reached by the global virus, the nation’s agriculture ministry confirmed.
The virus was identified in a brown skua, a migratory seabird, located in a remote area of Western Australia.
According to local media reports, the infected bird was discovered on a beach within Cape Le Grand National Park, near the town of Esperance, roughly 700 kilometers southeast of Perth.
Until this discovery, Australia stood as the sole continent unaffected by this specific variant, which spreads rapidly through both wild bird populations and poultry. Transmission to humans remains a rare occurrence.
“We all knew we couldn’t be bird flu-free forever,” Agriculture Minister Julie Collins stated during a press conference on Saturday.
Collins noted that a southern petrel, discovered in an exhausted state on another beach in Esperance, is currently being treated as a second suspected case.
However, she emphasized that there is currently no “evidence of mass mortalities at this time”.
According to a report by the national broadcaster, the ABC, Threatened Species Commissioner Fiona Fraser indicated that officials would determine “within a few days” whether the virus has spread to other animal populations across the country.
The ABC report also noted that the national committee for emergency animal disease met on Saturday. Chief Veterinary Officer Beth Cookson stated that Australian authorities had been “preparing for this event for a long time”.
While this marks the first detection on the mainland, the H5N1 strain was previously found in October last year on the remote external Australian territories of Heard and McDonald Islands, situated in the southern Indian Ocean.
A scientific study published this week revealed a devastating impact on those islands, estimating that the virus killed roughly 13,000 baby seals out of a colony of 17,000 since last August, accounting for more than 75% of the population. The research also highlighted unusually high mortality rates among local penguin populations. Experts believe the virus was introduced to the remote territories by migratory birds traveling from the French-owned Crozet Islands, located roughly 1,800 kilometers away.
First emerging in China during the late 1990s, the H5N1 variant has become the dominant strain circulating among wild birds globally.
The avian influenza virus primarily impacts birds but has increasingly infected various mammals, including seals, foxes, and otters. Human infections remain exceedingly rare and typically occur through direct exposure to infected animals.
