BIRMINGHAM, England, Feb 26 (Reuters) - British farm minister David Miliband on Monday rejected a suggestion that a wider import ban on Hungarian poultry could have stopped the spread of a deadly bird flu virus to England this month.

"I can see the temptations in talking about import bans on other countries but that means...when a diseased swan is found in Cellardyke (in Scotland) other countries can slap a ban on the whole of the British farming industry," he said.

"That is not where any of us want to go. You have got to take an attitude that says we will be guided by the science and we will follow and implement the rules in an effective way," he told the National Farmers Union's annual conference.

Britain's farm ministry confirmed on February 3 that a deadly H5N1 virus had infected a Bernard Matthews turkey farm in Suffolk, eastern England.

A UK report has said an earlier outbreak in Hungary was the most plausible source, a theory which the eastern European country rejects.

A dead swan found last year in Cellardyke, Scotland had provided the only previous case of the virus in Britain.

Miliband was responding to a comment from a farmer that if poultry movement controls had been implemented across a wider zone around the outbreak area in Hungary, it could have stopped its spread to England.

European Union farm commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel also backed the EU's policy on controlling the spread of the disease.

"It is my clear view that all the precautions that are taken immediately after you register an outbreak, that this system is working properly," she told the conference.

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