00:02Dr Nahid Bedelia, welcome to Stateline.
00:05Thank you for having me.
00:06You've been monitoring the spread of this disease right around the world.
00:09What are we on the cusp of here in Australia?
00:12In general, when you find this migratory detection, so far Australia has detected five, the concern
00:19would be that you could start finding those in resident birds and it's really going to
00:23take good surveillance to ensure that it doesn't skip into commercial poultry or other mammals
00:28on the continent.
00:30The big part of it is just ensuring early identification and then diagnostic testing as varied and as
00:37frequently as possible to ensure that it is not getting transmitted to local species.
00:42So right now, should Australia be testing animals on farms to get ahead of that spread?
00:47I don't think there's currently any evidence.
00:49As I mentioned, there's only five isolated detections and all of those are in long distance migratory
00:55birds.
00:55In fact, not even resident birds have been detected, but I would take that with caution.
01:00I think that's where I would start is additional detection and surveillance in those and also
01:04actually marine mammals.
01:06This particular species of the virus, genetically, it is closely related mostly to the virus that
01:14was found on Heard and McDonnell Islands near Antarctica, where it caused the death of nearly 13,000
01:21elephant seal pups. So really, I think it's going to be the marine animals, the mammals,
01:26as well as the resident birds that will need the greatest amount of surveillance.
01:30Have there been mistakes that have been made around the world that Australia should be
01:34cautious of not repeating?
01:35Well, I will speak to my own country. I think one of the things that at the very beginning
01:41with H5N1 and maybe even now that we are not doing enough is that we're not testing enough.
01:46What we failed to do is really understand for a long period of time how it was transmitting
01:51on farms and really having that One Health approach and conducting the scientific studies.
01:56And I think this is where Australia, with its One Health approach, with its biosecurity,
02:03with additional testing, could get ahead of and really understand how in your particular milieu
02:08it's going to play out.
02:09Is it inevitable that this disease will spread into agricultural populations?
02:16It's not inevitable. In fact, it hasn't happened in many other places. It hasn't happened immediately.
02:23Could it happen? Yeah, it's a luck of draw. I think you see commercial poultry is a big part
02:29of how this virus also spreads in each parts of Asia. Could it get into cattle? I think aside from
02:34the species found in the US, I think there's no evidence of seeing that level of infection in other
02:41geographic areas of the world. Again, I think the virus itself, influenza, is a very mutagenic virus,
02:49which means it can evolve. And hence, just understanding how it's behaving in a particular
02:54area is going to be most important. Is there a sense of how quickly we should expect this disease
03:00to spread within Australia? There really is not. Nature is very random. I think it depends on how
03:07many introductions, independent introductions there are. And so really, I think it's going to be hard to
03:13predict what happens next. Although, unfortunately, with repeated introductions, there is a possibility
03:18it could get into local species. And if it does that, then I think ensuring that there is
03:25biosecurity measures put into place is going to be important to limit further spread.
03:29Dr. Nahid Bedelia, thank you very much for your time.
03:31Dr. Thank you.
03:33Dr. Thank you.
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