Can I get bird flu from eating chicken or eggs?

There is no evidence of H5N1 transmission through properly cooked poultry or eggs. The risk is from direct, close contact with infected live or dead birds — particularly handling them without protective equipment. Properly cooked food is safe. The Australian Centre for Disease Control and FSANZ maintain this position.

What should I do if I find a sick or dead wild bird?

Do not handle it with bare hands. Report dead or unusual wild bird deaths to your state or territory agriculture department — in WA, that is the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development. The reporting system exists precisely to track these detections. If you have already handled one and feel unwell, contact your GP and mention the date and circumstances of the exposure.

H5N1 detected in Australian wild birds — what you need to know

What just happened

For the first time in Australia’s recorded disease history, the H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b strain has been found in native wildlife. As of early July 2026, the RACGP is reporting four confirmed cases in wild birds in Western Australia, one in South Australia, and a suspected case in New South Wales.

This is not a small surveillance footnote. H5N1 clade 2.3.4.4b is the same lineage that drove the mass poultry culling in the United States in 2022 and 2023, infected US dairy herds in 2024, and caused a steady stream of human cases in farm workers — the vast majority through direct, high-exposure contact with infected animals. It has now crossed into Australian wildlife for the first time.

RACGP President Dr. Michael Wright is urging GPs to “remain on alert,” particularly in Western Australia. The Australian Centre for Disease Control’s position is that the risk to humans is currently low. That assessment is based on the epidemiology of how this clade behaves: it infects birds efficiently, it can spill over into mammals with close bird contact, but sustained human-to-human transmission has not been established.

For most Australians, this changes nothing about daily life. For anyone who works with birds — professionally or as a hobby — the proximity of the risk has shifted.

The both-and

”Low risk means don’t worry”

The Australian CDC’s risk assessment is reasonable and based on the existing evidence. H5N1 in wild birds does not directly translate to H5N1 in humans. The bridging step — direct, close exposure to an infected animal — is the rate-limiting factor, and most Australians will never encounter it. The overwhelming majority of human H5N1 cases globally have occurred in people with occupational or subsistence-level exposure to infected poultry or, more recently, dairy cattle.

“Low risk” is also not a blanket assurance. It is a population-level probability that says nothing about individual risk in specific occupational or recreational settings. A backyard poultry keeper in regional Western Australia who handles a sick bird without gloves is in a categorically different situation from someone who has read about bird flu on their phone.

”A new geography is a new variable”

The reason infectious disease epidemiologists track wildlife reservoirs so carefully is that they expand the exposure pool. H5N1 in North American dairy cattle was unexpected, and it created a new transmission pathway that surveillance systems had not modelled. Australian wildlife is now part of the equation.

This does not mean an outbreak is imminent. Australian biosecurity systems are strong, surveillance is active, and the population most at risk — people in close, regular contact with birds — is identifiable. But novelty matters in infectious disease, and this detection is genuinely novel.

The RACGP’s clinical guidance is appropriately calibrated: GP vigilance, not patient alarm. The patient-facing ask is narrow: know the symptoms, know to name an exposure if you have one.

2 cents

For the majority of people reading this, the practical change is: notice this story, file it somewhere in the background, and move on.

The useful knowledge is not complicated. H5N1 symptoms overlap with ordinary influenza — fever, cough, sore throat, conjunctivitis, muscle aches, gastrointestinal upset — and they appear within ten days of exposure. The thing that flags it is the exposure history, not the symptom profile. If you have had direct contact with wild birds or poultry and you get sick in the following week, that history is what you tell your GP first. Say: I was handling [birds/poultry/a dead wild bird] on [date]. The testing pathway opens from there.

If you keep backyard chickens, work in wildlife rehabilitation, or have contact with waterfowl professionally: your state agriculture department’s biosecurity protocols are worth reviewing. WA is currently the highest-affected state. This is not a reason to stop what you do — it is a reason to do it with the basic precautions that most people in those settings already know about but sometimes skip.

Watch this space. Virus in wildlife means ongoing monitoring. The picture in two to four weeks will be clearer.

Verdict: maybe — human risk is genuinely low right now, but this detection is a first for Australia and warrants awareness rather than alarm. The situation is being monitored.

Sources cited

RACGP newsGP — GPs urged to be on alert as H5 bird flu spreads. https://www1.racgp.org.au/newsgp/clinical/gps-urged-to-be-on-alert-as-h5-bird-flu-spreads
Australian Centre for Disease Control — bird flu guidance. https://www.cdc.gov.au/flu/avian