Bird flu found in Britain and Croatia

The global battle against outbreaks of bird flu was expanding today after officials confirmed cases of the virus in a parrot in British quarantine and among swans at a Croatian lake.

A parrot that died in quarantine in Britain tested positive for the H5 strain of the bird flu virus. The bird imported from South America arrived in Britain last month and had been held with a consignment of birds from Taiwan, officials at the British Agriculture Ministry said.

Chief Veterinary Officer Debby Reynolds did not want to speculate whether the bird could have had the lethal h5n1 strain, which has killed more than 60 people in Asia since 2003. That strain has recently spread into Turkey and Romania, which also reported a new suspected case yesterday.

"I don't intend to speculate on the n-type until i have formal, official confirmation of this," Reynolds told a press conference. Croatia also said further tests were needed to determine if the virus detected in the dead swans was the h5n1 strain, feared to be the precursor of a human pandemic that could kill millions.

The discovery of the six dead swans prompted the European Union authorities in Brussels to announce they were preparing to ban imports of live poultry and poultry products from the Balkan country.