TAIPEI, Nov. 16 Kyodo

Taiwan's agricultural authorities on Wednesday dismissed a British government report that a consignment of birds exported to Britain from Taiwan may have carried the deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu.

''The possibility of birds recently exported to Britain being carriers of the H5N1 virus is zero since no bird in Taiwan has so far been tested positive for H5N1,'' a Council of Agriculture official told a press conference.

Britain's Agriculture Ministry said Tuesday in a statement that a total of 53 finches are believed to have died last month from the virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu at a quarantine center outside London, becoming the country's first case of avian influenza.

The announcement noted that the finches arrived in Britain on Sept. 28 from Taiwan and that it is not thought that they transmitted the virus to any other birds held at the center.

But scientists in Taiwan disputed the report, noting that the birds were healthy when they were shipped on Sept. 27 from a bird farm in central Taiwan and that no H5N1 virus has been detected at the bird farm.

In addition, the birds would have died before they arrived in Britain if they had contracted the virus, they said, pointing out that the birds were mixed with birds from other countries in the quarantine center.

''Taiwan is still a bird flu-free area,'' said Watson Sung, director of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection and Quarantine Bureau.

''We are still checking with the British government about some more details and also investigating if those birds were smuggled from mainland China but shipped away via Taiwan,'' he said.

Taiwan reported last month its first case of bird flu, saying the H5N1 virus was found in birds smuggled from mainland China. All the birds were soon destroyed.

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