A highly dangerous strain was found on an egg farm, and on Wednesday Australia reported its first human case of avian influenza in a teenager who had been ill in India but had fully recovered.
The H5N1 form of avian flu has overrun the world in recent years, killing billions of farmed and wild birds and infecting tens of mammalian species.
Health officials in Victoria, Australia’s southeastern state, said contact tracing had not shown any new cases, and there was a very low risk of others becoming ill because the flu does not transmit easily between individuals.
“This is the first confirmed human case of highly pathogenic avian influenza in Australia,” the state’s chief health officer, Dr Claire Looker, said in a statement.
She said that this was the first time the H5N1 strain had been detected in a person or animal in the country.
The Australian Chicken Meat Federation (ACMF) stated that companies have increased biosafety precautions as a precaution, but that “no discernible impact is expected on chicken meat supplies at retail level.”
An H7N7 outbreak occurred in Victoria in 2020, the most recent of nine Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) outbreaks in Australia since 1976. According to the administration, everyone was immediately brought under control and stamped out. (Source: @yahoonews)
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