The H5N1 strain of bird flu has for the first time been found in Australia, the country’s agriculture ministry confirmed. It means the highly contagious variant has now reached every continent
The disease was found in a migratory seabird, a brown skua, in remote Western Australia, Agriculture Minister Julie Collins said on Saturday.
The bird was found on a beach at the Cape Le Grand National Park near the town of Esperance, about 700km (434 mi) south-east of Perth, according to local media.
Australia was previously the only continent where the H5N1 bird flu strain had not been found.
The strain can spread quickly among poultry and wild bird populations. Human cases tied to the disease remain uncommon.
“We all knew we couldn’t be bird flu-free forever,” Collins told a press conference.
Collins added that there was a second suspected case of bird flu – a southern petrel that was found exhausted on an Esperance beach, though she added that there was no “evidence of mass mortalities at this time”.
Threatened Species Commissioner Fiona Fraser said authorities would know “within a few days” if the virus was present in any other animal populations in Australia, according to a report by the national broadcaster, the ABC.
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