Two additional cases of H5 bird flu have been confirmed in Western Australia, taking the State's total number of detections to ten.
Testing at CSIRO’s Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness today confirmed the ‘presumed positive’ detection in a petrel found at Seabird in the Shire of Gingin, and in a previously reported suspect petrel found at Parry Beach in Denmark.
In both cases, testing was unable to sequence the virus to definitively determine the H5 bird flu strain. This is not unexpected, particularly in wildlife samples from decomposed carcasses.
The Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development is taking a precautionary approach and treating these as positive detections based on the species involved, the circumstances of the detection and available evidence.
At this time, there is no evidence of any large-scale deaths in wildlife, nor any evidence of infection in poultry or in our agricultural production system.
There have been more than 1800 wildlife-related reports from WA to the hotline since the first confirmed case on 19 June. Each report is assessed for further investigation or testing based on the likelihood of disease risk.
To date, a total of 130 negative test results has been recorded across the State.
The risk to human health remains low, but people are reminded to avoid handing the animals, record their observations by photo or video and report to the EAD hotline on 1800 675 888.
More information is available on the Australian Government's Bird flu (Avian influenza) website.
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