No bird flu in traveller, Australia police called in

SYDNEY, Sep 27 (Reuters) Australian health authorities ruled out bird flu after a sick man was taken off a flight from Vietnam and hospitalised for tests today, with police later saying they were investigating the case.

The unidentified man was taken by ambulance to a hospital near Sydney airport and put in isolation for tests as part of routine quarantine precautions used whenever a person becomes unwell on an inbound Australian flight.

''Public health experts have ruled out avian influenza as the cause of illness for the man arriving at Sydney Airport earlier today,'' the New South Wales Health Department said in a statement.

Officials gave no other details about the man but media reported that he became unwell soon after boarding the Vietnam Airlines flight from Hanoi via Ho Chi Minh City and had been unconscious for at least part of the flight.

Australian Broadcasting Corp. televisionsaid the man was a Vietnamese-Australian national in his 40s.

The Australian Federal Police later said it was aware of the case and that officers had gone to the hospital to see the man.

They gave no other information and would not comment on media reports that the man might have been trying to smuggle illegal drugs he had swallowed.

Television networks reported the man had been treated for a heroin overdose.

Fears had been raised that bird flu might have been the cause of his illness because the man had recently been in an area in Vietnam which had chickens and he had had a previous influenza-like illness.

Television pictures showed an unidentified woman travelling the man.

Under Australia's strict quarantine laws, airlines are required to report any person who is feeling unwell to authorities before the flight lands.

Australia has not recorded a case of the H5N1 avian influenza virus, which has killed 146 people worldwide since 2003 according to World Health Organization figures, but it has had outbreaks of other types of bird flu in the past.

Reuters AB GC1616