Vietnamese poultry farmers

Klaus Stoehr, director of the WHO's influenza program, told German NDR radio that until now humans had remained largely resistant to serious infection from the virus.

"However, the virus has the potential to change and mutate and thus spark a terrible pandemic of the kind that has occurred every once in a while over the past centuries," he said.

 

"We don't know whether a pandemic will break out in the coming weeks, months or only in years," he added. "But there's no question that if such a pandemic occurs we'll be looking at hundreds of thousands or even millions of deaths worldwide." 

A British laboratory has confirmed that ducks found dead in Romania had been carrying the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus which was also found in Turkey recently and has killed more than 60 people in Asia since 2003.

 

Stoehr said countries so far unaffected by the virus needed to assume it would spread further.

"It's not about speculating, it's about actually getting ready for an outbreak to occur, even in Europe."

 

There is no question that Bird flu is on the march.

Last year, H5N1 exploded across Asia with bird infections in China, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia, as well as possibly Nepal, India and Pakistan, where no virus was isolated.

 

Earlier this year, clusters of human cases in Vietnam and in newly hit Cambodia, began to grow larger, with transmission to health-care workers as well. Then recently it was confirmed that the H5N1 virus has been found in dead birds in Turkey and in Romania - continental Europe's first.

In late August, Finland had its first bird flu scare, when gulls in its north-west showed signs of H5N1. But this was later shown to be a 'mild, low-pathogenic strain of avian influenza' of no risk to human health, according to the European Commission.

 

Back in May, several research groups visiting Vietnam had found small clusters of human cases of H5N1 especially in older people.

They also found many people with mild cases of flu who tested positive for H5N1. So too were those in close contact with them. What this suggested was that the virus had improved its ability for human-to-human spread, even if it wasn't killing or causing illness in large numbers.

 

It is now common knowledge that migratory birds are spreading the virus in Asia-from China to Russia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia-and, now, into Europe.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt, who recently led an international delegation to Southeast Asia said "It only takes one spark to set this virus off."

 

Asia is where the avian virus first started killing birds and then people.

The current virus, discovered in 1997, is now spreading faster and farther than ever.

 

The virus is concentrated in some of the poorest countries in Asia, the ones least able to contain a health crisis. At least 117 people have been infected. More than half of them have died from the disease.

Southeast Asia is the perfect starting point for a pandemic. Millions of people are in close proximity to each other and to the birds that can carry the deadly virus.

 

Vietnam is the hardest-hit nation, where wandering domestic chickens have spread the bird flu from farm to farm. Villagers who catch the virus complain of fever one day and are dead the next.

The United States and China have sent money to Vietnam to help vaccinate 260 million birds, but the disease is spreading faster than the vaccine.  If one bird is sick, the entire flock is destroyed, but not the ones on neighboring farms, a situation some experts believe is helping to perpetuate the disease.

 

Twelve people have died in Thailand, four in Cambodia and three in Indonesia. Each country is stockpiling as much anti-viral medication as it can, but no one country has enough to protect even a quarter of its population, so the focus continues to be on containment.

Hong Kong is clear of the virus for now, but health officials are resigned to the fact that an outbreak is coming.

 

"We cannot stop that from happening," said Dr. Ronald Lam, in charge of Hong Kong's emergency medical response. "Definitely pandemic will come."

Hospitals, nursing homes and clinics are monitored for signs of influenza. Every incoming passenger at the airport is electronically scanned for fever.

 

Experts fear that if the disease becomes contagious among people, someone boarding a plane in a place like Hong Kong could spread the virus around the world in a matter of hours.

"Viruses observe no country boundaries," added lam, whose lab is often called upon to verify and track the deadly flu. "The virus doesn't apply for a visa to go travel."