U.N. agency foresees bird flu spreading from Asia

ROME -- The bird flu virus that has hit several Asian countries is likely to spread to Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, the U.N. food agency warned on Wednesday, urging nations at risk to step up surveillance and prepare national emergency plans.

The most immediate threat is to poultry farms, but the virus' spread also increases fears that it could mutate into a form dangerous to humans.

A coordinated international response to bird flu is "absolutely necessary," French President Jacques Chirac said, adding his voice to the warning from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization.

Eliminating the bird flu outbreak is important for human health because each time the virus passes from bird to bird, it has the opportunity to mutate into a form that is deadly to humans and easily spread between people. That could trigger a pandemic that could claim the lives of millions of people across the globe.

Experts have warned the risk is high of a human flu pandemic, and control efforts are focused on ensuring the current bird flu strain does not trigger that.

Wild water birds flying from Siberia, where the virus has recently spread, may carry the disease to the Caspian and Black Seas "in the foreseeable future," the Rome-based FAO said.

"These regions ... could become a potential gateway to central Europe for the virus," the agency said in a statement.

Bird migration routes also run across Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq, Georgia, Ukraine and some Mediterranean countries, so bird flu outbreaks in these areas also were possible, the agency said.

India and Bangladesh, which currently seem to be uninfected, also are considered to be at risk. "Bangladesh, and to a lesser extent India, harbor large numbers of domestic ducks and are situated along one of the major migratory routes. They have the potential to become new large endemic areas of bird flu infection," the agency warned.

The H5N1 bird flu strain has killed or led to the slaughter of millions of poultry stocks in parts of Asia. It also has killed more than 60 people there, mostly poultry workers.

However, the virus does not pass from person to person easily -- a situation experts fear could change if the virus mutates.

In Russia, the outbreak has killed about 11,000 birds and prompted officials to slaughter 127,000 others to halt the virus' spread. No human cases have been registered there.

In Paris, Chirac met with World Health Organization Director General Dr. Lee Jong-wook to discuss how France can help fight the virus.

France offered to provide technical assistance, specifically training personnel in Africa and Asia. Chirac also promised help in accelerating the development of a bird flu vaccine and increasing worldwide supplies of a drug that has proven effective in treating the virus, Chirac's spokesman Jerome Bonnafont said.

Many experts said the virus would be detected more quickly in Europe than in Asia, and noted that people don't live in such close quarters with animals as they do in much of southeast Asia. The European poultry industry also is better equipped to shelter its birds from contact with the wild ducks blamed for the disease's spread, experts said.

However, FAO's chief veterinary officer, Joseph Domenech, expressed concerns that "poor countries in southeast Europe, where wild birds from Asia mingle with others from northern Europe, may lack the capacity to detect and deal with outbreaks of bird flu."

In the statement, FAO also warned that "as long as the H5N1 virus circulates in poultry, humans continue to be at risk."

Countries at risk, especially those along the routes of migrating birds, should increase surveillance of domestic poultry and wild birds, as well as ready emergency plans, the agency said, adding that affected countries should battle the bird flu virus at its origin, in poultry.

"Close contacts between humans, domestic poultry and wildlife should be reduced and closely monitored. On farms and in markets, domestic birds should be strictly separated from wild animals to the greatest extent possible," said the agency. "Vaccinating poultry could also be considered in at-risk situations."