Lessons from the US put Australia ahead on bird flu preparedness

Stock and Land

Dairy Australia sustainable animal care manager Andrew Hancock says Australia is better positioned to detect H5N1 bird flu in dairy cattle, despite the overall risk being low.

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00:00If the H5N1 strain of bird flu was to enter Australia via migratory birds and into the Australian bird and wildlife population,

00:10the risk of it spilling over into dairy herds in the same way that it did in the US is low.

00:16Are we prepared in case it happens?

00:19We're lucky in that compared to the US we have forewarning.

00:23This was a new unprecedented event in the US, so by the time they understood that H5N1 was in their dairy herds,

00:33it had already spread to a number of herds, so they were chasing their tail from the start.

00:38Whereas we know what signs to look for if we do get H5N1 in our wildlife and bird population,

00:45we're in a better position because we can have hypervigilance with the clinical signs in our dairy herds and get on top of it early.

00:52So I think we are prepared, although there's more work that was identified by this risk assessment,

00:57research gaps, et cetera, that we need to address to be more prepared.

01:01So we've started the process and there's more work to do, but we're definitely in better stead than we were a year ago.

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