A health official yesterday called British veterinary experts irresponsible for saying that a South American parrot infected with the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu picked up the virus from Taiwanese birds in British quarantine.
"The British authorities do not have solid evidence while making a statement implicating the possible source of a bird flu virus in another country," Yeh Ying (
"It's very dangerous and irresponsible," she said.
British veterinary officials late on Sunday announced that the parrot imported from Surinam had tested positive for H5N1, the strain of bird flu which has killed more than 60 people in Asia since 2003.
But with no cases of H5N1 yet discovered in South America, British veterinary experts suspect the parrot was infected when it was exposed to other birds from Taiwan while being kept in mandatory quarantine.
"Our working hypothesis is that any infection in the birds from Surinam is likely to have arisen in the quarantine system, most likely in the facility in Essex where the Surinam birds shared airspace with the birds from Taiwan," said Debby Reynolds, chief veterinarian of Britain's department of environment, food and rural affairs.
More tests on the Taiwanese birds were underway, she said in a statement.
Yeh said Taiwan's liaison office in London had checked with British health authorities "and their reply is that there is no problem with birds from Taiwan."
Avian flu is a highly infectious virus among both wild and domestic birds. So far, humans have caught the H5N1 strain after coming into close and prolonged contact with infected birds.
But scientists fear it could mutate with human flu strains and become easily transmissible between people, sparking a deadly pandemic like the Spanish flu outbreak of 1918.
Authorities here have expressed concern that Taiwan could be hit with outbreaks from either birds migrating from China, which has been struck with H5N1, or those smuggled into the country.
British authorities said that the H5N1 found in the parrot was most similar to the virus found in China.
"The closest match is a strain identified in ducks in China earlier this year. It is not so similar to the strains from Romania and Turkey," Reynolds said.
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