Fears bird flu outbreak jumps border
NSW’s bird flu outbreak has potentially crossed the border into the ACT and spread to a third farm.
The ACT-based commercial egg farm has been locked down, with products, eggs and machinery barred from leaving the premises.
Hens on the site will also need to be depopulated.
NSW Agriculture Minister Tara Moriarty said the state government was assisting ACT officials.
“The NSW government has offered assistance to the ACT Minister for the Environment Rebecca Vassarotti as their team responds to the issue. We are undertaking a collaborative approach to dealing with this biosecurity issue,” Ms Moriarty said in a statement issued on Wednesday night.
She also allayed fears that the outbreak would pose a threat to food safety and reiterated that it was “safe to eat poultry meat and eggs after proper handling and cooking”.
“The avian influenza virus is a low risk to the public. Transmission to humans is very rare and unlikely unless there is direct and close contact with sick birds,” she said.
“Proactive surveillance from the NSW government’s biosecurity incident management team has been tracing movement of eggs and materials from the infected sites as part of the response.
“NSW and ACT governments will continue to provide updates to the community and industry as they become available.”
NSW’s high pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H7N8 has been confirmed in two farms after it was originally detected at a Greater Sydney poultry egg farm on June 19.
Eight thousand birds at the large Hawkesbury site died from the flu in the first 48 hours after the virus was detected.
On Saturday, the same strain was confirmed at a second Hawkesbury poultry farm within 1.5km of the first farm. Both sites had been placed in lockdown since June 19.
To date, 327,000 birds either have been, or will be, culled as a result of the two NSW-based outbreaks.
In Victoria, the highly contagious virus has been confirmed at eight poultry farms that have been hit by two separate strains of HPAI – the H7N3 and H7N9.
The outbreak has prompted Coles to implemented a two-carton buying limit on eggs for all states and territories expect for Western Australia.
The South Australian government has also implemented a ban on live poultry and fertile movements from high-risk Victorian properties, with strict conditions placed on imports from other farms. This however doesn’t apply to eggs sold for human consumption.
