Bird flu detected at a second NSW poultry farm

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Australia’s Bird flu outbreak has grown again over the weekend, with the virus being detected at another farm in the biosecurity zone in Sydney’s north-west.

Transcript

00:00The second outbreak has occurred here at a chicken meat farm in Glasodia that's around

00:07one and a half kilometres away from the egg farm where bird flu was first detected last

00:12week. Authorities are still trying to piece together how that virus might have spread

00:17but we know that this particular strain of bird flu is airborne and could have been transmitted

00:22via machinery that had come into contact with the birds. The biosecurity zone in this area

00:28has been expanded by an additional two kilometres to protect other surrounding farms so no products

00:33or machinery will be coming in or out of this zone. Now this farm here is a lot smaller

00:39than the first farm where the flu was detected last week. There are around 86,000 chickens

00:45here that will now have to be killed along with the more than 200,000 chickens at the

00:50first farm as authorities work to contain this outbreak. Now they are assuring the community

00:55that this particular strain of bird flu isn't the same as the H5N1 strain that's been causing

01:02concern globally and Premier Chris Minn says there's no threat to human consumption or

01:07to the state's current supply of chicken and eggs. The advice from health authorities is

01:13that it's not dangerous in terms of human consumption. Obviously poultry has to be prepared

01:18correctly but that's the case at any time whether there's a particular strain of bird

01:23flu or not. The quarantine measures in place are working. There's four farms that are currently

01:28under quarantine. It means that vehicles exiting have to be stopped. The testing regime that

01:35was put in place after the initial bird was found or the bird flu was found for the other

01:40farms has unfortunately identified its contagion but within that quarantine area. Authorities

01:48are confident that they can eradicate this flu as they have done so three times previously

01:52here in New South Wales, the most recent being in 2013 in Yonge. And what's even more reassuring

01:59is they say that this current outbreak is playing out very similarly to the previous

02:03ones that they've dealt with in the past. So some reassuring news there for consumers

02:08but no doubt devastating for farmers that have had to destroy all of their chickens.

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