AUSTRALIA is completely unprepared to deal with a bird flu pandemic and its plans to cope with an outbreak are seriously flawed, a top scientist said.

Dr Graeme Laver, an internationally-renowned bird flu expert, slammed the Federal Government's plan to give emergency service workers priority in receiving anti-viral drugs during an outbreak of the virus.

He also attacked plans to quarantine people suspected of having been in contact with bird flu even if they are not showing any symptoms.

But Dr Laver's views contradict those of the World Health Organisation (WHO).

WHO's deputy director Alan Hampson praised Australia's preparations for a bird flu outbreak, saying it was in a better position than many other countries.

The government today said it would give Vietnam $3 million to tackle bird flu.

Australia has committed more than $32 million for bird flu and pandemic preparedness in the Asia-Pacific region since 2003.

However, Dr Laver said the Government's preparations are sadly lacking.

"The Government is not prepared at all, the strategies they put in place are flawed, completely wrong," he told a security conference in Canberra.

"Quarantine won't work. People arriving from overseas who have been recently infected will be shedding virus like crazy.

"They won't know they are infected ... they'll show no symptoms. How is the government proposing to to find these people?

"Quarantine will not keep flu-affected people out of Australia."

The government is considering vaccinating all Australians against bird flu and has stockpiled 3.95 million doses of antiviral drugs Tamiflu and Relenza.

Dr Laver said any vaccines developed now to combat bird flu could prove ineffective by the time an outbreak occurred because the virus could have changed substantially.

The only protection people would have from bird flu would be antiviral drugs.

But Dr Laver said the Government's plan to hand out the drugs to essential emergency service workers first was wrong and a waste of valuable medicine.

Instead, he said the drugs should be made available to anyone diagnosed with bird flu, through pharmacists.

"If that was done, there would be enough already in the stockpile for everybody in Australia," he said.

"It's a better bet than having the stockpile locked up and used in the wrong way when other people might be desperate for it."

Dr Laver and a team of scientists discovered the flu virus among wild birds along the Great Barrier Reef in 1969.

His discoveries have helped develop antiviral drugs such as Tamiflu.

Dr Laver's comments came as Health Minister Tony Abbott held top-level talks with his overseas counterparts in Canada about the best way to avert the threat of a bird flu outbreak.

The talks come just days after three imported Canadian racing pigeons tested positive in Melbourne to avian influenza antibodies.

"There will almost certainly be a pandemic at some stage, but whether it will be next month, next year, or next decade, we just don't know," Mr Abbot said.

Health authorities are calling on the government to launch a national bird flu education campaign.

Mr Hampson said Australians need to know how to recognise bird flu symptoms if they fell ill, and how to behave in the event of an outbreak.

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