Incident Information

Information is available on a number of current wildlife health incidents in Australia, as well as selected long-term health investigations and historic wildlife health incidents. Detailed information is available in the national electronic Wildlife Health Information System (eWHIS).

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Feb, 11 2025 | Incident Information

Incident - High pathogenicity avian influenza H7 outbreak in poultry, Victoria – February 2025

An outbreak of H7 high pathogenicity avian influenza (HPAI) was detected in February 2025 in poultry in Victoria. This outbreak has now been eradicated. In 2024 an unrelated H7 HPAI strain was detected in Victoria, NSW and ACT.

The H7 HPAI strain associated with the 2025 outbreak has a distinctly different epidemiology from H5 2.3.4.4b strain (H5 bird flu) that is impacting wild birds, mammals (both wild and domestic) and poultry overseas.

There were no reports of mass wild bird deaths in relation to the 2025 H7 HPAI outbreaks in Victoria. HPAI has never been detected in free-ranging wild birds in Australia. Enhanced surveillance and monitoring of wild bird populations will continue. Wildlife Health Australia supports wild bird surveillance for avian influenza (AI) by coordinating the National Avian Influenza Wild Bird (NAIWB) Steering Group. NAIWB members regularly undertake testing of wild birds for avian influenza. Since 2005, over 154,000 tests have been undertaken and no HPAI viruses have been identified in Australian wild birds. This surveillance does continue to show presence of a wide range of low pathogenicity avian influenza (LPAI) virus strains in Australian wild birds, without signs of disease. Sometimes LPAI viruses can spill over from wild birds into poultry populations and may then mutate into HPAI strains within poultry. Worldwide, H7 HPAI viruses are very rarely detected in wild birds. See also WHA update on avian influenza and wild birds, WHA Fact Sheet: Avian influenza and wild birds or Wild Bird Surveillance for more information.

Any unusual illness or death in wild birds should be reported via the Emergency Animal Disease Hotline on 1800 675 888.

For more information on the 2025 H7 HPAI outbreak in poultry, see Agriculture Victoria webpage and Avian influenza: Information for veterinarians

For more information on H5 bird flu, see the WHA incident information page High pathogenicity avian influenza (H5 bird flu) which provides links to information sheets, videos, toolkits and other resources.

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