Australian farm quarantined as bird flu precaution

Australian authorities have for the first time quarantined a farm for fear of bird flu infection, the government said today.

Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran said the farm in New South Wales state had been quarantined as a precaution after bird flu tests on a chicken there were inconclusive.

Samples have been sent to a federal government laboratory for further testing, McGauran said.

“While there is no evidence of any outbreak of avian influenza on the property, it has been placed under quarantine as a precautionary measure,” he said.

The statement did not say when the test result became known, when the quarantine came into force or for how long it was set to last.

“This is consistent with Australia’s conservative approach to managing animal health and disease risks,” McGauran added.

Investigators visited the property and found no sick or dead birds in the flock.

“Of the range of tests concluded, all were clearly negative except for some molecular tests which gave some weak inconclusive results,” McGauran said.

In October, inspectors quarantined 102 pigeons imported from Canada which had been exposed to the virus. Three of the birds were destroyed.

Australia has yet to record a case of the virulent H5N1 bird flu strain that has killed hundreds of millions of chickens and ducks since it started ravaging poultry stocks across Asia in 2003, and has jumped to humans, killing at least 71.