DEAD seagulls in northern Finland have renewed fears that avian flu is getting closer to Britain.

The Agriculture Ministry in Helsinki said yesterday that the virus had been detected among sick and dead seagulls found in a park in Oulu, 370 miles north of the capital.

But detailed confirmation is still needed, and the officials suggested that if the cause proves to be bird flu, it may not be the strain that has caused an epidemic in the Far East.

Riitta Heinonen, a senior ministry official, said: “Our view is that, if it is bird flu, it is low-pathogenic avian influenza, not the high pathogenic that has been found in Asia.” Final test results will be ready in three weeks.

“First we will make certain which type of virus it is and then we will check other wild birds in the area,” Ms Heinonen said. “There are no poultry farms nearby.”

Low-pathogenic bird flu is not uncommon and can be found in as many as 30 per cent of wild birds, experts say.

But monitoring is increasing as fears grow of a global outbreak, especially since the lethal H5N1 avian flu virus has spread from Asia into Siberia, in eastern Russia, and Kazakhstan. Some experts have given a warning that it could spread to Europe, carried by migratory birds as they move to warmer areas for winter.

On Thursday Debby Reynolds, the Chief Veterinary Officer, said that there was only a low risk of avian flu entering Britain. But Bob McCracken, the president of the British Veterinary Association (BVA), said that migrating birds would inevitably carry it to Britain at some stage.

“The majority of our reared birds are still intensively reared and bred in large houses that are wild-bird-proof,” he said. “The danger is to free-range birds and to backyard flocks.”

He said that water fowl such as geese and ducks would be most at risk of catching avian flu from migrating birds, and called for testing to be increased.

The Dutch Government has already ordered poultry to be kept indoors to reduce the risk of catching an infection from wild birds. The Netherlands was hit by an outbreak of bird flu in 2003 that led to the slaughter of 30 million birds.

Similar measures will not be taken across the rest of Europe because they are “disproportionate” to the risk involved, EU experts decided at a meeting this week.

Dr Reynolds said that there was a continuous, low-level risk of low pathogenic avian flu arriving in Britain but there was no evidence that the H5N1 strain was on its way. “At the moment there is no evidence that a migratory bird can take high-pathogenic avian flu from one part of the world and then arrive somewhere else,” she said.

In Russia, the outbreak has killed about 11,000 birds and prompted officials to slaughter 127,000 others to halt the virus’s spread. No human cases have been registered. In Asia bird flu has killed 62 people since 2003.

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