Source: Reuters

By David Ljunggren and Marcy Nicholson

OTTAWA/WINNIPEG, June 20 (Reuters) - A backyard flock of geese, ducks and chickens in Eastern Canada was not infected with the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu strain, officials said on Tuesday, dismissing fears that the strain might have arrived in North America for the first time.

The fears had been aroused after a gosling in the small flock in Prince Edward Island died, and a lab in Eastern Canada examined it and found evidence of H5 avian flu.

But the officials said on Tuesday that Canada's national laboratory in Winnipeg, Manitoba, had not been able to reproduce the virus found by the Eastern lab.

The officials told a conference call announcing their test results that there was no risk to people, to other animals, or to the environment.

"It may have been H5N1 but it wouldn't have been the H5N1 that we have concerns about, in other words the Asian strain," said Dr. Jim Clark, veterinarian for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

The highly pathogenic H5N1 avian flu virus only occasionally infects people, but when it does, the fatality rate is high. It has killed 130 people in nine countries, and is also marked by a high mortality rate in birds.

Clark said the highly pathogenic virus has a relatively long life span, and would have survived the journey to the Winnipeg lab.

He said the bird probably had a low pathogen virus, but its cause of death remains a "matter of conjecture".

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