LONDON, Sat. --- The global battle against bird flu was expanding today after officials confirmed cases of the virus in a parrot in British quarantine and among swans at a Croatian lake.

A parrot that died in quarantine in Britain tested positive for the H5 strain of the bird flu virus. The bird, imported from South America, arrived in Britain last month and had been held with a consignment of birds from Taiwan, officials at the British Agriculture Ministry said.

Chief veterinary officer Debby Reynolds did not want to speculate whether the bird could have had the lethal H5N1 strain, which has killed more than 60 people in Asia since 2003. That strain has recently spread into Turkey and Romania, which also reported a new suspected case yesterday.

Croatia also said further tests were needed to determine if the virus detected in the dead swans was the H5N1 strain, feared to be the precursor of a human pandemic that could kill millions.

The discovery of the six dead swans prompted the European Union authorities in Brussels to announce they were preparing to ban imports of live poultry and poultry products from the Balkan country.

The six dead swans were found in the lake at Zdenci in the east of Croatia, which is one of 20 sites Croatian veterinary services have put under heightened surveillance as part of a huge operation to

take samples from wild birds.

In France, the French agency for food safety AFSSA recommended today stepped-up scrutiny of wildlife, but stopped short of proposing poultry be confined. The national federation of supermarket chains said sales of poultry had dropped 20 per cent in five days.

The United Nations’ bird flu envoy flew into China on Friday where more than 91,000 birds have been destroyed to stamp out a new outbreak.

“The international community needs to co-operate fully to protect the health of the people”, Chinese Health Minister Gao Qiang told UN envoy David Nabarro.

In Thailand, doctors reported the seven-year-old son of a Thai farmer who died of bird fly had also contracted the disease, but they said the virus had not mutated and still could not pass easily among humans.

The 48-year-old farmer --- the 61^st human victim of the virus worldwide since late 2003 --- died after slaughtering and eating a sick chicken.

“In this case, the boy may have contracted the disease from the area where the chicken was dying. The boy had close contact with the virus (from being around sick chickens) and possibly from handling the birds’ excrement”, Siriraj Hospital director Prasit Watanapa said.

Doctors said the boy was expected to recover but would remain in hospital fro observation for three weeks.

In Romania, officials said a suspected new case of bird flu had been detected in the northeast of the country, only hours after assurances that the outbreak of the deadly H5N1 virus had been contained to two locations in the southeast.

Even as Governments tried to calm people, fear spread.

Stocks of flu vaccines in Spanish chemists “are being exhausted”, the Spanish general public health administration said.

The World Health Organization (WTO) warned against “scaremongering” but it also said each additional human case was making it easier to develop human-to-human transmission.

“While neither the timing nor the severity of the next pandemic can be predicted, the probability that a pandemic will occur has increased”, it said.

The European Commission has formerly banned imports of pet birds and feathers from nearly all Russian territory in an emergency procedure after the discovery of the disease south of Moscow this week.

The Czech Ministry of Agriculture announced a ban on the sale of chickens in markets and exhibitions or sale of other birds in public places.

Norway ordered all poultry in the south of the country to be placed indoors to prevent contact with wild birds. Switzerland issued a similar order for the entire country.

Ukraine’s Parliament slapped a six-month ban on imports of poultry. Nepal banned imports of European poultry.

Bangladesh formed a bird flu task-force.

Migratory birds believed to be carriers may next take the virus to Africa, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said this week, warning that the continent would be an “ideal breeding ground” because of close contact between people and animals.

Scientists have said east African Rift Valley countries Ethiopia, Kenya and Tanzania, as well as Uganda, were particularly threatened as they host millions of migratory fowl that fly to warmer climes during the European winter.

On the other side of the continent, Senegal --- which has west Africa’s largest bird sanctuaries --- asked people to take any poultry found dead to the nearest vet for inspection.

And in the Americas, the Canadian Government sought to reassure Australia, which imported racing pigeons from Canada carrying flu antibodies and subsequently banned bird imports from Canada. --- AFP.