British vet has not got bird flu,says health agency

LONDON: A worker involved in the cull of 160,000 turkeys in Britain's first outbreak of bird flu has not been infected with the H5N1 virus, the Health Protection Agency said on Wednesday.

British media said the person, admitted to hospital with a mild respiratory complaint, was a government veterinarian. The agency would not comment on this.

"We are confirming that he has tested negative for avian flu and for normal flu," a spokeswoman for the agency said.

"He will now be treated as a normal patient."

The cull of turkeys on a farm in Suffolk, eastern England, where the H5N1 strain of bird flu broke out was completed on Monday.

Russia and Japan banned British poultry imports after the country's first outbreak of the H5N1 strain in farmed poultry that sparked the cull.

Workers wearing white protective suits, black gloves and masks took the livestock away in crates to be gassed after discovery of the disease on the farm run by Europe's largest turkey producer, Bernard Matthews.

The H5N1 virus has spread into West Asia, Africa and Europe since it re-emerged in Asia in 2003 and although it remains largely an animal disease, it can kill people who come into close contact with infected birds.

The virus has killed 166 people in the past four years.