While Australia is recovering from a devastating outbreak of Avian Influenza, we're told the worst is yet to come. Experts say it's only a matter of time until a strain already wreaking havoc overseas lands on our shores.
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:001.3 million chickens are buried in this field in Meredith.
00:07It's just stopped everything and been absolutely devastating for us.
00:09Australia is now recovering from its worst ever avian influenza outbreak, killing about
00:142 million birds, causing egg shortages, costing farmers tens of millions of dollars and dozens,
00:21if not hundreds, of jobs.
00:23We went from big revenue business, turnover, employing 40 or 50 staff to nothing.
00:28But many are worried something much worse is on the horizon.
00:32Avian influenza has dozens of strains.
00:35Those less likely to cause death and disease are low pathogenicity, while the deadliest
00:40are high.
00:41Australia's 2024 outbreaks were caused by high pathogenicity H7 strains.
00:46But the deadliest form of the virus is H5N1, which has rapidly spread across the globe
00:52since 2020, particularly via migrating wild birds.
00:56It has killed hundreds of millions of birds and spilled over into other species.
01:01Australia is the last large continental landmass that has not had an incursion of H5N1.
01:08The CSIRO's Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness is at the front line of readying
01:12the country for H5N1.
01:14Here, scientists are studying and tracking the deadly strain.
01:19This virus is a game changer, so everything that we thought about it, it's just changing.
01:25H5N1 could cause ecological disaster, threatening to wipe out local populations of some animals,
01:31such as black swans, seals, sea lions and penguins.
01:35It's a big deal, I mean, as we've seen from overseas, we've had millions and millions
01:39of birds killed.
01:40If it gets to Australia, it's most likely to come through migrating birds.
01:44What we need to do is we need to pick up any incursion if it happens really quickly, and
01:48then we need to respond quickly.
01:50With this outbreak now hopefully behind us, all eyes turn to the skies.
01:55In the hopes that this spring's migration doesn't bring H5N1 to our shores, but experts
02:01warn it's a matter of when, not if, this strain of avian influenza makes its way to Australia.