Fear of bird flu again swept Britain on Thursday as scientists confirmed that a wild swan found dead in a Scottish seaside village had the H5N1 strain that can be fatal to humans.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) said the swan — found a week ago on a harbour slipway in Cellardyke, Fife — perished from the same H5N1 strain that has killed more than 100 people, mainly in Asia.
”As far as we are concerned, we are confirming it,” a spokesperson for the RSPB, one of the biggest and most influential wildlife groups in Britain, told Agence France-Presse, adding that the information had come to it from the British government.
The final word had yet to come from the European Union’s dedicated bird-flu laboratory in Weybridge, south-west of London, where scientists were carefully picking over the bird’s remains.
Britain now becomes the 13th country in the 25-nation EU to report a case of a wild bird dying from H5N1, heightening fears of the illness striking poultry farms.
It will lead to stringent measures, such as housing and movement controls to prevent its spread, according to Scotland’s regional government, the Scottish Executive.
”We were waiting on laboratory results for the N type. We expect to get those later today [Thursday],” Scotland’s chief veterinary officer Charles Milne told reporters in Edinburgh earlier on Thursday.
In Glasgow, city officials said two swans found dead in a local park had been sent off for testing, while six swans were reported to the authorities in Northern Ireland.
The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in London said it had taken more than 500 calls on its hotline since news of the dead swan in Scotland emerged on Thursday.
Senior officials in London, meanwhile, convened a meeting of the top-level emergency crisis unit known as Cobra — the same unit that oversaw the response to the July 7 suicide bombings in London last year.
A major two-day simulation of how the authorities would respond to a bird-flu outbreak was meanwhile cancelled on its second day, to free up participants to deal with the real thing.
Prime Minister Tony Blair, visiting Northern Ireland, urged calm.
”This is not a human-to-human virus. It is something that is transmitted to poultry,” he said. ”It is only if humans are in direct and very intensive contact with poultry that there is any risk involved. As other countries have had to cope with this and take these preventative measures, we will do so. We will act according to the best advice.”
In Cellardyke, population 1 900, a 3km protection zone was set up around the spot where the bird was found, ringed in turn by a ”surveillance zone” of 10km. Bird keepers inside the protection zone were told to keep their birds indoors wherever possible. Measures to restrict the movement of poultry, eggs and poultry products were being put into effect.
Police roadblocks were also set up around Cellardyke, about 15km south of the university and golf town of St Andrews, with police officers asking whether drivers were carrying poultry.
Dan Young, a researcher at the University of St Andrews, who reported the dead swan to the authorities, said: ”It had obviously been dead for a while, a few days probably.
”It looked like a mangled heap of feathers. It had been in the water for a while. It had obviously been pecked at or eaten by something. It was torn open.” — AFP
