The Albanese Labor Government has implemented emergency animal disease response plans to support the Victorian Government's response to a detection of high pathogenicity avian influenza (HPAI).
Testing at the CSIRO's Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness today has confirmed the outbreak in a commercial free-range egg farm in northern Victoria is a H7 strain, ruling out the H5 strain that has been devastating wildlife globally.
Analysis has also confirmed that this event is unrelated to the strains recently eradicated from poultry farms in New South Wales, Victoria and ACT.
The commercial free-range egg farm has been placed under quarantine, and Agriculture Victoria is providing on-the-ground support.
The risk to human health remains low and consumers can have confidence eggs and poultry products at the supermarket are safe to consume.
Quotes attributable to Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Julie Collins MP:
"Australia has successfully contained and eradicated HPAI H7 a number of times in the past 50 years, including as recently as last year.
"The Government is well prepared for avian influenza outbreaks, and we're taking this incident of HPAI extremely seriously.
"The Albanese Labor Government is investing more than $100 million in enhancing national preparedness and response capability, to strengthen surveillance, preparedness and response capability and mitigate the impacts of a potential H5 bird flu outbreak on Australian agriculture, environment and human health.
"These preparations build on our strong national biosecurity arrangements, with the Government investing more than $1 billion over four years to Australia's biosecurity system."
