First case of H5 bird flu confirmed in Australia

[00:00:00]Let's get straight out to the agriculture minister Julie Collins with an update on the suspected bird flu in Western Australia.

[00:00:07]>> The Western Australian Department is leading the on-ground activities and is being supported and nationally coordinated by my department, the Department of Agriculture, [clears throat] Fisheries and Forestry.

[00:00:17]A key priority for this response is, of course, to determine the extent of this infection in wildlife.

[00:00:24]Can I also thank the local community?

[00:00:26]Since yesterday's report, the community has been responsive to the media.

[00:00:31]And I understand our Western Australian colleagues are responding to a number of calls to the hotline.

[00:00:36]This is a sign of our system working.

[00:00:39]Our government has now invested over $100 million to strengthen our nation's preparedness for H5 bird flu. We have looked at what has happened overseas.

[00:00:48]We have learned from that, which is why we have invested early.

[00:00:51]I have been talking about our investments in bird flu preparedness now for almost 2 years. We all knew that we couldn't be bird free forever, and that we are the only continent that was bird free, H5 bird flu free.

[00:01:06]So, that's quite a mouthful. H5 bird flu free.

[00:01:09]I'll now hand over to our chief veterinary officer, and then our threatened species commissioner will have a few words to say, then we'll take some questions.

[00:01:20]>> Thank you, Minister.

[00:01:22]As the minister has confirmed, overnight testing of samples from a dead brown skua has confirmed that the bird was infected with H5 high pathogenicity avian influenza.

[00:01:33]This testing was undertaken at Australia's emergency animal disease reference laboratory, the CSIRO's Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness.

[00:01:41]This is the highly pathogenic strain that has been circulating globally, and is the first detection in Australia.

[00:01:49]Samples from another sick bird, a giant petrel, in the same vicinity have now been tested at Western Australia's laboratories and also returned a suspected positive result for H5 bird flu. Um this will uh be sent to the Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness for confirmatory testing.

[00:02:08]Importantly, I can confirm also that there is no evidence of any mass mortality at this time, nor any evidence of infection in poultry.

[00:02:19]At this early stage, it is difficult to make a conclusion about whether the infection has established in wildlife populations.

[00:02:27]It is not present in our poultry or agriculture production systems.

[00:02:32]The Western Australia Department is undertaking surveillance to better understand the situation on the ground.

[00:02:39]I understand this will be concerning news for many Australians who, like me, have a strong connection to our wildlife.

[00:02:47]We have been carefully preparing for this event for a long time.

[00:02:51]We have had the benefit of learning from the international experience, uh and this means that the investment that government and um along with state and territory jurisdictions and industry have made have left us as best prepared as possible um to respond to this situation.

[00:03:10]Earlier this morning, I convened the Consultative Committee for Emergency Animal Disease to discuss the laboratory results from ACDP, to consider the response plan, including measures to enhance surveillance, and to identify whether there has been further spread.

[00:03:27]This is a key priority at this point in the investigation. As you will appreciate, it is an evolving situation, um and there will be there will be some information that we don't know, and that will continue to emerge over the coming days and potentially um weeks.

[00:03:42]We continue to be on alert looking for signs of disease, um and the most important message for the public um is to uh assist this through our strong biosecurity system. Um, if you encounter sick or dead birds, um, we are asking that you avoid contact with them, that you record information about the location of the dead bird, as well as take any, um, um, information that might be helpful to us, like videos or photographs, and report that to our emergency animal disease hotline. Um, there is a lot of information available, um, on our bird flu.gov.au website, and I encourage, um, people who are interested or concerned, um, to make use, uh, of those resources. Thank you.

[00:04:36]>> Thank you. So, um, the overseas experience is that, um, there have been significant, uh, mortality events in birds and mammals where this disease has become established. We expect that if if it does become established in Australia, there will also be impacts to Australian wildlife, in particular birds and mammals.

[00:04:54]We have, um, particularly with the budget measure 2 years back, really been rolling up our sleeves with the states and the territories and many other partners right across Australia to put Australia's wildlife in the best position it can be in if this disease arrives, knowing that if it does establish in Australia, there's very little we can do to stop the spread and to to at the time protect wildlife.

[00:05:17]So, we have analyzed all of Australia's birds and mammals for their susceptibility to this disease. We've taken into account whether they're already threatened with extinction, but also other other natural traits, such as whether they're waterbirds, whether they're marine species, whether they congregate, to understand which species are most susceptible.

[00:05:35]We have also worked with the states and territories to support them to develop now over 100 plans for our most important natural sites, such as Ramsar wetlands, islands, and other locations, and also our most susceptible species ranging from mammals such as the Tasmanian devil as a scavenger, it's susceptible, through to critically endangered species such as the orange-bellied parrot, but also species which aren't already threatened, but which could become so in some locations such as the black swan, which is susceptible. So, these site plans are in place, and they will support the jurisdictions and others to be able to best respond if the disease arrives.

[00:06:11]We've also provided funding to captive breeding facilities where they're supporting the breeding of threatened species which are required for that species survival in the wild, and that's for biosecurity to stop those species in captivity capturing that disease if it arrives in Australia. There's over 31 threatened species which are now being protected as part of these measures.

[00:06:33]We The most important thing we can do for our native species is to actually take efforts to build their resilience to this disease in the wild because we can't stop the disease itself. So, that is work that is well underway. We now have dozens of projects across our islands and across mainland Australia which are dealing with other threats right now. That might be removing weeds, it might be removing feral cats or foxes or invasive pigs, um and and invasive rodents in particular. This then allows our most vulnerable species such as seabird populations, but many others to be able to breed effectively, grow their populations, and this effectively builds resilience to these diseases. We're already seeing outcomes of these. So, we reported recently in the press in the Coral Sea, Willis Island, where weeding in a tern colony enabled those birds to to reenter that colony at the nesting space within 24 hours. So, we can have remarkable impacts and absolutely no regrets actions with these measures.

[00:07:32]Um Okay, and I'll leave it there. Thank you. We've got many other examples if there are questions on that.

[00:07:39]Fiona Fraser, I'm the Australian Government Threatened Species Commissioner, and I work for the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. Thanks.

[00:07:47]>> All right, some questions.

[00:07:49]>> Minister, what does foreign experience tell us about the lag between initial discovery and likely outbreaks? And should we take likely outbreaks now as not likely, but inevitable?

[00:08:03]>> Well, the chief veterinary officer is probably best placed to talk about the technical part of that, but what my advice has certainly been that people have provided to me is is that we will know within a few days about whether or not this has established itself in any populations in Australia or whether it's migratory birds that have come up from the sub-Antarctic, for instance. So, we'll know a bit more detail within a few days of this investigation on how bird flu got into Australia. This is our first detection and I want to reiterate that it's not widespread, there's no evidence of any mass mortalities and there's no evidence that it's in our poultry or agricultural system at this stage.

[00:08:40]>> But you but you from what you say, it seems like you expected a high chance you could find it to be significantly more widespread quite quickly.

[00:08:50]>> I think that's best answered by our chief veterinary officer in terms of what we might find, yes.

[00:08:57]>> The the situation globally has been that this virus is being moved around by migratory birds including waterfowl and seabirds like the brown skua and the giant petrel. In some circumstances, there have been lone detections in migratory birds that have not gone on to spill over into wild animal populations, but over time what we've seen in many other continents across the globe is that this may not be a sole introduction because they are birds that are moving around as part of their natural cycles Um, and over time if if we um continue to have introductions, um, then those opportunities for um spillover become um increased, and that's certainly what we've seen globally, um, in that eventually, um, there does tend to be spillover into, um, wild populations. We just can't predict that in this circumstance. Um, as I mentioned at the beginning, it is very early in our investigation. We have two, um, confirmed sick birds in an isolated region, um, on the coast, um, of Western Australia, um, and we're taking every action now to make sure that those are appropriately investigated, and putting the call out to the community to help, um, identify where there might be other sick animals.

[00:10:19]>> Given, um, Australia's native wildlife, um, typically is quite naive to this virus in comparison to northern hemisphere species, and it's it's almost inevitable, let's say, that there will be spreading wild populations of birds and mammals.

[00:10:35]Um, what should Australians expect to see in terms of impacts across a range of species? Are we expecting mass mortality events? I mean, that has occurred in every other continent around the country, like you say. So, is that expected? And could you please name, um, some of the species of birds and mammals that you think are most vulnerable?

[00:10:56]>> With, um, the question about what we might expect to see, uh, certainly, um, Australia being the last continent to, um, have a detection of this strain, um, uh, confirmed here, um, it does mean that our populations are naive to the virus. Um, that's no different, though, I would, um, add to the populations, um, across the globe, including the northern hemisphere, when this virus was first introduced into there. So, it has been circulating for a number of years in those environments now, and they still do um see some impacts. Um what we would expect is that the most vulnerable sort of areas and locations tend to be populations of animals that um um aggregate in high densities and that have um breeding um sites at high densities.