Nine dead swans suspected of being Britain's first bird victims of avian flu tested negative for the lethal H5N1 strain of the disease.

The results have lifted the immediate threat of the virus having already crossed the Channel but experts warned that it would be foolish to ignore the growing risk as the disease creeps closer.

The swans were found in six locations spread across England from Preston to Winchester at the weekend, and reported through a public hotline set up as part of the enhanced surveillance. All were tested for presence of the virus at the Government's laboratories in Weybridge, Surrey.

"We have just spoken to the laboratory and they confirm that the tests were negative," a spokeswoman for the Department for the Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs (Defra) said.

Earlier Defra nevertheless issued new guidance to poultry farmers advising them to prepare to bring their flocks indoors within 24 hours of an outbreak being confirmed. Critics have warned that could be too little, too late.

Britain's response to the looming threat has become the subject of increased scrutiny following the discovery of an infected duck 400 miles away in France.

Five other European member countries - Greece, Italy, Austria, Germany and Slovenia - have also confirmed the presence of the infection in dead wild birds. Tests are under way on dead birds in Spain, Hungary and the Netherlands.

Margaret Beckett, the Environment Secretary, who attended a meeting of counterparts in Brussels today, said that it was still not inevitable that the deadly strain of the flu virus would arrive in the UK.

She said that experts at the talks had so far dismissed applications by France and the Netherlands to begin partial vaccination programmes of poultry. Mrs Beckett said that the over-arching view remained that vaccination, and the export ban it entails, could raise more problems than it solves.

She said: "Everyone recognises that vaccination has problems as well as benefits. It is certainly not a simple answer. Vaccination does not necessarily stop the disease in its tracks."

The Environment Secretary explained that there was currently no vaccine available to counter the H5N1 strain and vaccinating poultry with a general vaccine might enable the virus to spread at a lower, less detectable level.

More research into vaccine options was needed before a specific cure for the H5N1 strain could be produced, she said. "The danger is that vaccination could mask the disease. It might stop birds getting it to the degree that it becomes fatal, but it cannot cure the situation and it could cause difficulties."

Mrs Beckett acknowledged that there were also market considerations because using a vaccine effectively costs a country its "disease-free" status, closing down export markets.

Asked if the UK was now bound to get the virus, after the latest confirmed outbreak of H5N1 in France, she replied: "It is not inevitable but there is an increased likelihood - a strong likelihood that it could arise in the UK. It would be very foolish to say that it won’t.

"But the fact is that we don’t have it in the UK. And everywhere that bird flu has shown up, it has been the wild bird population. Nowhere in Europe has anyone found evidence of the virus being found in poultry."

The Government's readiness for the arrival of the H5N1 strain Britain, although supported by the British Veterinary Association, has been criticised by some experts.

John Oxford, scientific director of vaccine research company Retroscreen Virology Ltd and Professor of Virology at St Bartholomew’s and the Royal London Hospital, warned that Britain was being complacent.

Professor Oxford said that "rather more scientific nations than our own", like the Netherlands, can calculate when wild birds were migrating over them and pulled domestic poultry inside.

"What we do not want is either a New Orleans situation or a tsunami situation - that is you could predict something was going to happen but you don’t do anything about it to prepare."

Peter Ainsworth, the Shadow Environment Secretary, said that the public needed to know the lessons of Foot and Mouth had been learnt.

"What I think is pressing at the moment is a perceived lack of awareness in the public and amongst poultry owners themselves about what might be required were there to be an outbreak. And I think the key thing we are looking for the Government to do at the moment is to put right that public information deficit."

Britain's poultry population is between 110 million and 150 million at any one time. Of these, around 10 per cent is kept outdoors. Defra launched a scheme forcing all commercial farmers with more than 50 birds to register directly with the Government in December. So far, 11,163 farmers have signed up.

Farmers in France and the Netherlands are under orders to bring their flocks indoors by the end of the day. In Britain, farmers were today told to review procedures to ensure that all of their fowl could be brought inside within 24 hours of an outbreak.

France, the largest poultry producer in the EU, and the Netherlands, which had to slaughter around 30 million birds after a bird flu outbreak in 2003, support preventive vaccination.

So far 169 people worldwide have caught the new strain of avian flu; 91 have died. Most are reported to have been in close contact with farmed poultry. Turkey is the farthest west that a human has been infected.

While no poultry has been struck by the disease in the European Union, meat sales in the industry have plunged 70 per cent in Italy, at least 40 per cent in Greece, 15 per cent in France and 10 per cent in Portugal.

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