Created: 4/7/2006 1:42:22 PM 
LONDON (AP) -- Wildlife officers were keeping watch on 3 million birds and a dozen dead swans were being tested for the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus Friday, as the British government rolled out a crisis plan after the country's first confirmed case of the disease.
Around 250,000 free-range birds were being moved indoors and restrictions on bird movements were in place in heavily policed zones close to the Scottish harbor town where a swan infected with H5N1 was discovered last week, Scotland's government said.
Six poultry keepers in a 1.8 mile ring around the site were having their flocks sampled for signs of the virus.
Patrols of wardens and veterinarians were also touring a 6 mile surveillance zone established around Cellardyke, a town more than 450 miles north of London.
Farming unions urged the public not to overreact to the discovery of the diseased swan - confirmed Thursday as having HN51 - amid fears the effect could be devastating to Scotland's rural economy.
The National Farmers' Union said Scotland's poultry industry is worth more than 115 million pounds (US$202 million; euro161 million) per year.
"If people panic, they are putting livelihoods at risk," said James Withers, deputy chief executive officer of the National Farmers' Union Scotland.
A "wild bird risk area" covering about 1,000 sq. miles has been imposed in eastern Scotland, requiring poultry farmers to keep their flocks under cover or separated from wild birds.
Around 3.1 million farmed birds populate the area and are under intensive surveillance for signs of disease, Withers said.
Scotland's rural affairs minister Ross Finnie said 14 other birds, including 12 swans, are currently being tested for signs of H5N1.
At least 109 people have died from bird flu since a wave of outbreaks of the H5N1 strain swept through Asian poultry populations in late 2003, according to the World Health Organization.
Alex Thiermann, the Paris-based head of the avian influenza team at the OIE, said human infection was unlikely in Britain and the developed world, as people do not commonly live in close proximity to birds, or to bird droppings.
"The risk of a human in most of Europe being infected with H5N1 is almost totally negligible. The impact is likely to be economic," Thiermann said.
He said poultry consumption had dropped 70 percent in Italy following confirmation of bird flu.
Thiermann also raised the prospect of the virus being carried across the Atlantic by migratory flocks interacting.
"It could become a risk in the United States by next fall," he said. "There are a lot of variables, but there is that prospect."
He said migratory birds from Europe could infect those from the Americas as they intersect in Siberia, Alaska or the Arctic Circle.
"It is unlikely avian flu could be brought into the U.S. through imported birds, because of the strict controls on imports," said Thiermann. "But we need to look at the potential mingling of migratory birds and whether that could lead to the spread of the virus."
He said studies will be carried out to examine birds in breeding grounds and water courses shared in the Arctic by migratory birds traveling on Eurasian flyways and on trans-Atlantic flyways - the routes followed by the birds.
In Washington, federal guidelines were rushed out Friday to help companies develop new tests capable of quickly singling out bird flu in infected humans, the Food and Drug Administration said.
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