National Poultry Newspaper

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Vol 4. No. 11 November 2021 National Poultry Newspaper PO Box 162 Wynnum 4178 Phone (07) 3286 1833 Email ben@collins.media
AI risk after high rainfall
The damage caused by the tornado that hit the University of New England campus in Armidale on the evening of October 14.
Blown away by PHA Ideas Exchange 2021
WELL, it has defi- nitely been a turbu- lent month here at the Poultry Hub Australia offices.
tual conference, the hatchability, euthanasia
We have been in and out of the office due to COVID and also a tornado!
Participants were able to engage with the speakers through live question time and dis- cussion during the con- ference.
research and training. Following the confer- ence, we received a num- ber of emails compli- menting us on the con- ference and also to reach out and engage with
Unfortunately, the
University of New Eng-
land campus on which
PHA sits has been sub-
stantially damaged as a
result of a tornado that
swept through on the
evening of October 14. have been damaged,
which is a great relief. This month the PHA team successfully ran
The conference com- prised of eleven presen- tations spread over two afternoons – October 25 and 26 – and provid- ed a mix of scientific presentations focussed on nutrition, improving
by TAMSYN CROWLEY Director
engagement level was great.
and disease detection. This meeting also pro- vided the PHA team an opportunity to give an update on our current and future plans for our programs of education,
I am happy to report that luckily no people were injured and none of our PHA facilities
Ideas Exchange 2021. Despite being a vir-
some of our programs.
The UNE campus substantially damaged after the tornado swept Thankfully, no one was injured and the PHA facilities were through Armidale. unscathed.
* continued P2
NEW research has found that the risk of an avian influenza outbreak in Australia would peak two years after a high-rainfall period.
susceptible to infection. During these dry periods, wild waterbirds aggregate on permanent natural wet- lands or man-made water- bodies such as dams, which increases the risk of direct and indirect contact be- tween waterfowl and com-
Outbreaks of the avian influenza virus in the Australian poultry indus- try predominantly, if not exclusively, originate from wild waterfowl.
mercial poultry.
These dynamics occur
In Australia, where large parts of the country expe- rience erratic rainfall pat- terns, above average high rainfall followed by exten- sive dry periods drive AIV dynamics in wild birds.
over a long period of time and new research from Pro- fessor Marcel Klaassen’s laboratory at Deakin Uni- versity has found that the risk of AIV outbreaks in commercial poultry peaks two years after the onset of ahigh-rainfallperiod.
Intense rainfalls lead to mass wild waterfowl breeding events.
This research used weath- er and AIV detection data from the Murray-Darling Basin and the region im- mediately surrounding it in southeast Australia.
When next the landscape starts to dry out and wa- terfowl start to flock, AIV prevalence in these wild bird groups increases.
Having identified this key environmental risk factor for AIV outbreaks in Aus- tralian commercial poultry, Prof Klaassen and his team are currently working on generating a risk assess- ment model that will allow identification of AIV out-
Not only because of increasing contact rates but also because there is an increase in the num- ber of young birds that have not been exposed to AIVs circulating in wild birds in Australia before and are thus more
* continued P2
Professor Marcel Klaassen’s laboratory at Deakin University has found that the risk of avian influenza virus outbreaks in commercial poultry peaks two years after the onset of a high-rainfall period.
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