MLHD Chicken Surveillance Program underway to test for mosquito-borne viruses

Four flocks of 15 chickens have been deployed to homes in Leeton, Griffith, Hay and Deniliquin, where they will be tested for diseases including Ross River Fever and Murray Valley encephalitis, which can be deadly in humans.

The Murrumbidgee Local Health District's "Sentinel Chicken Surveillance Program" runs for six months from November to April and coincides with mosquito trapping and analysis at several sites across the region.

MLHD senior environmental health officer Tony Burns said the chickens will be used as an "early warning device" to detect any arboviruses, which are those spread by infected insects.

Mr Burns said the chickens will have their blood drawn weekly with a "pin prick" device, by volunteers who will then send the samples to the Centre for Infectious Diseases and Microbiology in Sydney for analysis.

"If mosquitos are around and they're carrying [a] virus and they bite the chook, we can blood the chook to see whether they're carrying the virus or not," Mr Burns said.

"Mosquitos are attracted to ... the fact that we breath out carbon dioxide. So people and animals breath out carbon dioxide."

Mr Burns said this year's chicken program was still in its early stages, but no viruses had been detected so far.

He said health authorities had been using chickens to test for viruses for 25 years, a method introduced to the NSW government's wider program for surveilling arboviruses that began more than 40 years ago.

"It started probably back in the late 1970s or 1980s when we had a major outbreak along the Murray River of encephalitis, which is a very serious disease," he said.

An MLHD spokeswoman said the organisation works closely with local councils to find suitable volunteers, who are trained and have their chicken coops inspected by a Department of Primary Industries vet.