SYDNEY — Australian officials have confirmed the country’s first mainland case of H5N1 bird flu, discovered in a remote corner of the nation’s southwest, Agriculture Minister Julie Collins announced Saturday.
Collins stated that laboratory testing verified the presence of the virus in a bird that was discovered on a beach located roughly 700 kilometers — about 430 miles — southeast of Perth, the capital city of Western Australia state.
Officials had announced Friday that the bird in question, a migratory seabird called a brown skua, was found within Cape Le Grand National Park and had initially tested positive for avian influenza, with full confirmation still pending at that time.
In anticipation of H5N1’s potential spread to Australian shores, the country had already implemented a series of precautionary measures, including strengthening biosecurity protocols at farms, conducting disease testing on shorebirds, vaccinating at-risk species, and running practice drills to rehearse outbreak response strategies.
