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WASHINGTON – The United States banned poultry from mainland British Columbia yesterday because of a case of bird flu, though Canadian officials said it wasn’t the virulent form in Southeast Asia blamed for more than 60 human deaths.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said Sunday that a duck at a commercial poultry farm in British Columbia had tested positive for bird flu. The virus was a low-pathogenic North American form that doesn’t kill poultry and is not a threat to people, officials said.

“We’re waiting to get more information from Canada, at which point we could be able to scale back” the ban, said U.S. Agriculture Department spokesman Jim Rogers.

Canadian officials plan to report to the U.S. within 24 hours, according to Canada’s chief veterinary officer, Dr. Brian Evans.

Depending on the results, the U.S. could restrict imports from a smaller, regional area, Rogers said.

The farm with the infected duck isn’t licensed to export. Authorities have begun killing about 56,000 birds on the farm with carbon dioxide gas and have quarantined four other farms within three miles of the area.

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