News - BBC NEWS | UK | Doubts over bird flu tests raised

Doubts over testing in quarantine for bird flu have been raised after it emerged Taiwanese finches, not a parrot, brought the disease to the UK.

A government report said the mixing of tissue samples led officials to wrongly assume a South American blue-headed pionus was the source of the virus.

Opposition politicians said the report exposed confusion in the system and raised more questions than it answered.

But ministers argued it showed quarantine procedures were working.

The probe for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said it was more likely the virus was brought to an unnamed quarantine centre in Essex by 50 finches from Taiwan rather than by the parrot as previously thought.

BBC NEWS UK Doubts over bird flu tests raised