H5N1 bird flu<\/a> is likely to spread further, after the country\u2019s first mass mortality episode among seabirds killed about 50 greater crested terns off the \u2060coast south of Adelaide.<\/p>\nAgriculture Minister Julie Collins said on Monday testing confirmed H5N1 bird flu in a group of 49 dead and 35 sick terns found by helicopter surveillance on rocks off Cape Jaffa, 250km (155 miles) \u200cfrom Adelaide on Friday.<\/p>\n
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However, there is no evidence yet of the virus on Australia\u2019s farms, many of which have locked down to safeguard poultry \u2060flocks since it was first detected in June.<\/p>\n
\u201cAustralians should expect to see more spread and larger numbers now of wildlife being affected,\u201d Collins told reporters in the capital, Canberra.<\/p>\n
Federal Environment Minister Murray Watt echoed Collins\u2019 comments, saying it was not possible to prevent wildlife from \u201cmoving around\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reality is you can\u2019t stop native and wild birds flying around, and you can\u2019t stop wild animals moving around, and that will mean more mass mortality events like the one we have now seen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Australia and New Zealand, which saw its first \u2060H5N1 case last month, have spent years bracing for the virus, with steps such as tighter biosecurity at \u2060farms, testing of shore birds, vaccinating vulnerable species \u2060and war-gaming response plans.<\/p>\n
The virus has killed hundreds of millions of birds and mammals around the world in recent years, causing billions of dollars in losses to poultry farmers, infecting cattle in the United \u200cStates and littering beaches with corpses of birds and seals.<\/p>\n
H5N1 bird flu can infect humans who have contact with infected animals. But the number of \u200ccases \u200cworldwide is small and officials say the risk to humans is low.<\/p>\n
Australia was the last continent to report a case of H5N1 bird flu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Agriculture Minister \u200bJulie Collins said on Monday that testing confirmed H5N1 bird flu in a group of 49…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":725920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[5083,1296,428,1397,59,102,620,50,56,54,55,4407,26582],"class_list":["post-725919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-agriculture","tag-asia-pacific","tag-australia","tag-environment","tag-gb","tag-health","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-wildlife","tag-world-health-organization"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/725920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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