The containment of future avian flu outbreaks will be a priority of a new $30 million biosecurity hub aimed at safeguarding Australian food and farms.
The new hub was officially launched on Tuesday, August 20 in Canberra.
The Charles Sturt University-backed facility has multiple partnerships across Asia-Pacific and Federal Government departments and agencies, with the main operations including a training centre at Wagga Wagga in NSW.
“Everyone’s really concerned at the moment about the possible impacts of avian flu ... we've got people looking at different variants of the virus right now, who are modelling what potential outbreaks might look like,” the hub’s Professor Lee Baumgartner said.
Three separate strains of bird flu have been detected across poultry farms in Australia this year, prompting mass culls and egg shortages in parts of the country.
Meanwhile, scientists have been warning about the arrival of the deadly H5N1 strain, which has killed more than 650,000 native birds in South America since 2022, as well as 30,000 sea lions and 17,000 southern elephant seal pups.
“The best-case scenario is we don’t get a big migratory bird season, and this doesn’t become an issue, but if we do, we need to be prepared to act,” Prof Baumgartner said.
“Avian flu is a current focus and a current concern, among the many other threats that we’re looking at in the region.”
The head of Charles Sturt Gulbali Institute for Agriculture, Water and Environment said the team would tackle current and emerging threats including the highly contagious foot and mouth animal disease, which was detected in Indonesia in 2022.
The hub aims to streamline research, teaching and policy capabilities under the one roof, and will include talking to producers who might be impacted by any future biosecurity outbreak.
“It’s about educating people to look out for the symptoms, to look for the signs, so they can be reported and contained before it gets further out,” Prof Baumgartner said.
The hub’s aim is to specifically respond to threats as outlined by Australia’s science agency CSIRO, which estimates invasive species cost the country around $25 billion a year.
– with AAP