Australian hospital tests man for bird flu

MELBOURNE - A 29-year-old man is being tested for bird flu in an Australian hospital after recently returning from China, health officials said on Friday.

"We are waiting to confirm a diagnosis. We are waiting for some test results to come back," said Bran Alexander from the Department of Human Services in the southern state of Victoria.

"It will be later this afternoon before we can say any more. We have had six other cases and the others have all turned out to be common flu," Alexander told Reuters.

If diagnosed as bird flu it would be the first case in Australia.

The man, whose nationality has not been confirmed, visited a local doctor on Friday morning complaining of "shortness of breath", an ambulance official said. "The doctor could not rule out the possibility of bird flu," he told Reuters.

The man was taken by ambulance to the Northern Hospital in the Melbourne suburb of Epping for further examination.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu, which first surfaced in Hong Kong in 1997, has killed more than 60 people in Asia since it re-emerged in South Korea in 2003.

Bird flu has now spread to Russia and Europe.

Millions of birds have been slaughtered in Asia following outbreaks of the disease, which is spread from bird to bird.

About 65 countries have drawn up bird flu pandemic plans in case the virus mutates and is transmitted from human to human.

- REUTERS