Taiwanese slam British vets

Taipei - A top Taiwanese health official on Monday called British veterinary experts irresponsible for saying 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," said Yeh Ying, deputy director of the bureau of animal and plant health inspection and quarantine.

"It's very dangerous and irresponsible," she said.

British veterinary officials announced on Sunday 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 (Defra).

Additional tests on the Taiwanese birds were under way, she said.

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.

Health minister Hou Sheng-mou said Taiwan had received a positive response from Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche to its request for talks on producing the anti-viral drug Tamiflu.

He quoted a letter from Roche saying it was "willing to enter into discussions with any party who is able to fully or partially produce substantial quantities of Tamiflu, for emergency pandemic use, within a specified timeline and in accordance with appropriate quality specifications, safety and regulatory guidelines".

While not a vaccine against avian flu, Tamiflu can stop flu if given quickly when symptoms develop, and governments around the world are scrambling to get supplies amid warnings of a looming flu pandemic.

Taiwan's quasi-official national health research institute said last week it had created a version of the drug which was virtually identical to Tamiflu and could produce a million doses within months if it obtains a licence from Roche.

- AFP