Man with flu symptoms taken off flight in Sydney

Medics protective suits boarded a plane in Sydney to isolate a passenger who arrived from Vietnam with flu-like symptoms and took him to a hospital yesterday, but it was very unlikely he had bird flu, health officials said.

The man, in his 30s, raised bird flu concerns because he had been in an area of Vietnam with chickens and was so ill during the flight that he was difficult to rouse, New South Wales state's communicable diseases director Jeremy McAnulty said.

However, initial tests indicated the passenger was not likely to have the illness.

"It turns out that that is a very unlikely diagnosis," McAnulty said.

The man was traveling on a Vietnam Airways flight from Hanoi and the pilot radioed ahead to alert quarantine officials about the man's illness an hour before the plane's arrival, McAnulty said.