Highly pathogenic avian influenza has been detected at a third poultry farm near Melbourne, but it is not the same strain that has spread globally and raised fears of human transmission, the Victoria state government said on Wednesday.
Hundreds of thousands of birds have already been destroyed after bird flu was found at two Australian egg farms last month.
The third farm is within a few kilometres of the first to report infection and both have the same H7N3 strain of the virus, while the other farm had an H7N9 strain, the state government said.