Agriculture Minister Julie Collins on Monday confirmed the first case of a H5 bird flu mass mortality event after birds were found sick and dead along South Australia’s coast. Australia has now recorded 74 confirmed cases of the H5 bird flu, of which 10 were in Western Australia, 54 in South Australia, two in New South Wales, seven in Victoria, and one in Queensland. “(What) we’ve now got is a mass mortality event. “The overseas experience has shown that we can’t stop the spread of H5 bird flu among birds or among mammals. “That will mean more mass mortality events like the one we have now seen.