Brits find first case of bird flu in a dead swan

Government officials in Britain say a dead swan found in Cellardyke, Scotland, has a strain of the H5 bird flu virus.

According to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs more tests are being conducted to see if the virus is the deadly H5N1 strain presently sweeping across Europe.

If confirmed, this would be the first case of the H5N1 virus found in a wild bird in Britain since the bird flu scare started.

Chief Veterinary Officer Debby Reynolds says they are fully prepared and a national bird flu exercise which began this week to test the country's response to any outbreak has been cancelled in order to conserve resources to deal with a possible outbreak.

A 3 km protection zone around where the swan was found in Fife, eastern Scotland has been established and local bird owners have been told to take their birds indoors.

A further 10 km surveillance zone has also been set up.

The government says measures to restrict the movement of poultry, eggs and poultry products from these zones will be brought into effect immediately, and the European Union has been informed of the precautionary measures.

The EU says in both the protection zone and the surveillance zone, on-farm biosecurity measures must be strengthened and the hunting of wild birds banned.

They also say disease awareness of poultry owners and their families must be carried out.

Restrictions on movement were placed on a poultry farm in Orkney last month after 100 birds were found dead on a farm while the owner was on holiday.

Tests on the birds later, found no evidence of avian influenza.

There have been to date more than 40 suspected cases of bird flu investigated in Britain since the start of the year and none has returned positive results.

Bird flu remains essentially an animal disease, but can infect people who come into direct contact with infected birds.

Scientists in the Netherlands have said that cats are significantly more likely to catch and pass on bird flu than first thought and could help the virus to mutate to cause a human pandemic.

Affected regions of Germany and France have ordered that cats be kept indoors, but the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has not yet said whether it would make similar provisions should bird flu be confirmed in Britain.

According to the most recent figures from the World Health Organisation, the deadly virus has killed 108 people since late 2003.