AZERBAIJAN: Avian flu was discovered in a new country yesterday with Azerbaijan finding the lethal H5N1 strain in wild birds floating dead on the Caspian Sea, and two more deaths from the virus were reported in China and Indonesia.
The virus was discovered in birds in the west African country of Nigeria earlier this week, extending what a senior United Nations official called a devastating spread from southern Asia over the past seven months.
Health experts are trying to warn people of the danger of a virus that is contracted through direct contact with infected birds. But episodes in countries as far apart as Nigeria and Iraq showed the struggle they face.
Nigerian poultry-farm workers used their bare hands to throw dead chickens on to fires as village children stood by to watch in an area where H5N1 flu virus has been found.
In the southern Iraqi city of Amara, which is investigating a death that may have been caused by bird flu, children played among the dead fowl.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has already confirmed 88 human deaths since the virus re-emerged in late 2003, and the figure is steadily climbing.
Indonesia said a woman being treated for bird flu at a specialist Jakarta hospital had died and another patient was in critical condition.
The virus has also killed a 20-year-old woman farmer in the central Chinese province of Hunan.
There are fears the virus could mutate to a form where it can spread from human to human.
David Nabarro, who heads the UN drive to contain the virus, said there was no evidence it had mutated to that point, but added: "It's not far away".
The WHO offered a glimmer of hope, saying a limited number of migratory birds appeared to be spreading a single sub-strain of the H5N1 virus.