{"id":747811,"date":"2026-06-20T00:56:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T00:56:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/747811\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T00:56:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T00:56:08","slug":"australia-confirms-first-mainland-case-of-h5n1-bird-flu-australia-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/747811\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia confirms first mainland case of H5N1 bird flu | Australia news"},"content":{"rendered":"

The deadly H5N1 bird flu strain has arrived on the Australian mainland with test results confirming a bird found on the Western Australian coast was positive for the disease.<\/p>\n

The agriculture minister, Julie Collins, confirmed a brown skua found unwell last Sunday at Cape Le Grand national park in southern WA died from H5N1.<\/p>\n

Tests taken in WA suggested a sick giant petrel found in the same area was also infected.<\/p>\n

Collins said samples from the petrel were being sent to the CSIRO\u2019s laboratory for confirmation.<\/p>\n

The highly pathogenic strain has killed millions of birds globally and crossed over into mammal species including elephant seals<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Collins promised a nationally coordinated response that would initially focus on the extent to which the disease may have spread in wildlife.<\/p>\n

She said there was no evidence of mass mortalities so far or of infection of any poultry.<\/p>\n

Anthony Albanese said earlier on Saturday the arrival of H5N1 bird flu was \u201cconcerning\u201d but the government had spent $113m in preparation and was focused on trying to limit its spread.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re about is making sure, firstly, that we do whatever we can to restrict the spread,\u201d the prime minister said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe, of course, always examine these issues carefully. We have prepared for it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is something that has happened through migratory birds. It\u2019s happened, by definition, around the world, and that is why we\u2019ve been preparing for this.\u201d<\/p>\n

More details soon \u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The deadly H5N1 bird flu strain has arrived on the Australian mainland with test results confirming a bird…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":747812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":["post-747811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=747811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/747811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/747812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=747811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=747811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=747811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}