Bird flu ... the quarantined birds were no threat / Reuters (File)

AUSTRALIA has banned imports of birds from Canada after three pigeons certified as healthy by Canadian officials tested positive for avian flu antibodies.

In the first local scare since the outbreak hit Asia and Europe, three pigeons tested positive to bird flu antibodies after being brought here by plane.

Prime Minister John Howard has urged the public to remain calm, but quarantine officials have warned there could already be birds with the virus in Australia.

Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran today said he was "deeply disturbed" by what he called a lapse in health protocols and was summoning Canada's ambassador in Australia to his office to discuss the issue.

"We have had apologies from the Canadian authorities but not yet an adequate explanation of the testing anomalies," Mr McGauran said.

"Australia will be imposing an immediate ban in the importation of birds from Canada until there are further and better reasons given for the errors made by the Canadian quarantine authorities."

The consignment of racing pigeons arrived in Australia on September 5 with full veterinary documentation from Canadian authorities that said they were disease-free.

But they were still put into Australian quarantine in Melbourne, where three of the 102 birds tested positive to avian influenza antibodies and four for Newcastle Disease antibodies, Mr McGauran said.

Quarantine service spokesman David Finlayson said none of the birds actually had the bird flu virus or represented any threat to the public.

"Thankfully Australia's quarantine system worked as it's meant to, that we didn't take the certification on face value even though it is coming from an advanced country," Mr Finlayson said.

But the presence of the antibodies meant the birds had been in contact with the virus at some point.

"That could at some stage have developed into something else in the future," Mr McGauran said. "Our science isn't so precise and knowledgeable. We don't know the consequences of further mutations.

"We have commenced discussions with the Canadian authorities as to return of the remaining pigeons. Otherwise they will also have to be destroyed."

A spokesman for the Canadian food inspection agency, Jim Clark, denied Canada had failed to meet all Australian certification qualifications, saying the exported birds did not have to undergo serological testing for the bird flu virus because Canada has been declared free of the disease since May 2004.

"These are free-ranging birds. They're racing pigeons so that's what they do, they fly outside and they are exposed to wild bird populations," Mr Clark said.

"The serological reactions could have come from exposure (to avian influenza) many months or even years prior to the export."

"The fact that these birds may have contracted the avian influenza virus at some point is not really that significant.

"The fact that they had no shedding of virus and there were no virus present in any of the samples taken and they appeared clinically healthy and completely normal, I think, is relatively significant."

Bird flu has killed dozens of people and has the potential to kill millions if it mutates into a form transmissible between humans.

A highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza, H7, was discovered on a farm in Canada's west in February 2004.

The three pigeons with bird flu antibodies in Melbourne will be put down while the remaining 99 will be either sent back to Canada or killed.

Testing positive to antibodies means the infected pigeons were exposed to a strain of bird flu. Health experts said last night that further detailed tests would be required to determine the threat posed by the discovery.

Professor Greg Tannock, an RMIT virology expert, told the Herald Sun that birds carrying the antibodies would have been exposed to a strain of bird flu at some point. "It depends on how soon they made the antibodies," he said.

"The worry is that there could be some virus hanging around as well.

"The antibodies don't arrive unless you've had the virus: the question is if they've still got it."

 

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