Australia detects first H5 bird flu in local seabird

Australia has detected the highly contagious H5 bird flu in a local seabird for the first time, the government said Friday, after laboratory tests confirmed infection in a greater crested tern in Robe, South Australia.

Agriculture Minister Julie Collins said 12 H5 bird flu cases had been confirmed in Australia since June, but all previous cases were in migratory sea birds rather than local wildlife.

“While this, of course, is a concerning development it is not unexpected,” Collins told a news conference in Hobart.

She said there was still no evidence at the time of mass mortality from H5 bird flu and no sign that the virus had spread to other animal populations, poultry or agricultural systems. Collins said the risk to human health remained low.

Scientists were trying to establish how the virus reached the greater crested tern. Collins said the bird is a coastal seabird with an overlapping coastal range with migratory sea birds that had previously tested positive for H5.

South Australia’s state government implemented enhanced surveillance in the area where the bird was found.

Officials have previously said they were investigating whether the disease arrived in Australia through birds migrating from the sub-Antarctic. Scientists said in June that H5 bird flu had killed more than 13,000 elephant seal pups after infecting a breeding colony on the remote Heard and McDonald Islands, one of Australia’s external territories in the sub-Antarctic.