Australia is recovering from a devastating outbreak of avian influenza, but 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.
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00:001.3 million chickens are buried in this field in Meredith.
00:07It's just stopped everything and been absolutely devastating for us.
00:10Australia is now recovering from its worst ever avian influenza outbreak,
00:14killing about 2 million birds, causing egg shortages,
00:18costing farmers tens of millions of dollars and dozens, if not hundreds, of jobs.
00:23We went from, you know, big revenue business, turnover,
00:26you know, employing 40 or 50 staff to nothing.
00:29But many are worried something much worse is on the horizon.
00:33Avian influenza has dozens of strains.
00:36Those less likely to cause death and disease are low pathogenicity,
00:40while the deadliest are high.
00:42Australia's 2024 outbreaks were caused by high pathogenicity H7 strains,
00:47but the deadliest form of the virus is H5N1,
00:51which has rapidly spread across the globe since 2020,
00:54particularly via migrating wild birds.
00:57It's killed hundreds of millions of birds and spilled over into other species.
01:02Australia is the last large continental landmass that has not had an incursion of H5N1.
01:08It's a matter of when it turns up, not if it turns up.
01:11The CSIRO's Australian Centre for Disease Preparedness
01:14is at the front line of readying the country for H5N1.
01:18Here, scientists are studying and tracking the deadly strain.
01:22This virus is a game changer.
01:24So everything that we thought about it, it's just changing.
01:28So it's doing unusual things and we need to be prepared for it.
01:33While avian influenza can kill humans, it is not considered a major risk.
01:38Instead, H5N1 could cause ecological disaster,
01:42threatening to wipe out local populations of some animals,
01:45such as black swans, seals, sea lions and penguins.
01:49It's a big deal. I mean, as we've seen from overseas,
01:52we've had millions and millions of birds killed.
01:54It's also now spreading in mammals.
01:56It's causing a lot of issues there.
01:58And so you can assume something similar might happen in Australia.
02:01And for chicken growers, the risk of economic damage is high,
02:05along with potential egg and chicken meat shortages,
02:08in a country where the average person consumes 15 kilograms of eggs
02:11and 50 kilograms of chicken meat annually.
02:14We can't stop migrating birds.
02:16And if it gets to Australia, it's most likely to come through migrating birds.
02:20What we need to do is we need to pick up any incursion
02:23if it happens really quickly, and then we need to respond quickly.
02:26With this outbreak now hopefully behind us, all eyes turn to the skies,
02:31in the hopes that this spring's migration doesn't bring H5N1 to our shores.
02:36But experts warn it's a matter of when,
02:39not if, this strain of avian influenza makes its way to Australia.