SYDNEY, July 10 (Reuters) – Australia on Friday confirmed the first case of the deadly H5N1 bird flu \u200cvirus in a native seabird, marking a new phase \u200cin the disease’s spread after it landed on the country’s shores last \u200bmonth.<\/p>\n
Laboratory testing by Australia’s national science agency confirmed the case in a greater crested tern found in the South Australian coastal town of Robe, Agriculture Minister Julie Collins said.<\/p>\n
It is the \u200cfirst confirmed infection \u2060in an Australian seabird, with all other cases being found in migratory seabirds.<\/p>\n
It brings the total \u2060number of confirmed detections in the country to 12, after authorities on Friday also confirmed two additional infections in South Australia \u200band \u200bone in Western Australia.<\/p>\n
Collins said \u200bthe development was “concerning” but not \u200cunexpected, adding that there was still no evidence of mass mortalities or spread to the poultry or broader agriculture sector.<\/p>\n
“Our scientists are undertaking further work to establish the potential pathway that resulted in the Australian sea bird’s infection,” she \u200csaid.<\/p>\n
“What we do know is that \u200bthis is a coastal seabird that \u200bhas been overlapping coastal \u200brange with migratory seabirds that have previously \u200ctested positive for H5.”<\/p>\n
Australia in June \u200bbecame the \u200bfinal continent to confirm a mainland-based case of H5N1, although the virus had been detected in late 2025 on \u200bthe sub-Antarctic territory \u200cof Heard Island, about 4,100 km (2,600 miles) from \u200bcontinental Australia.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Christine Chen in Sydney; Editing by \u200bJacqueline Wong and Thomas Derpinghaus)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SYDNEY, July 10 (Reuters) – Australia on Friday confirmed the first case of the deadly H5N1 bird flu…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":577989,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[78],"tags":[1128,246037,18,135,19,17,246038,246039,170815,54171,29854],"class_list":["post-577988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-australia","tag-bird-flu-virus","tag-eire","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-julie-collins","tag-migratory-seabirds","tag-seabird","tag-south-australia","tag-western-australia"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116893531651672029","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/577989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}