Asia's bird flu, which health experts fear could unleash a dangerous flu among people, may be poised to spread to India, Australia, New Zealand and eventually Europe with migrating birds, scientists warned Wednesday. One report concluded it could become a global threat. If birds carry the H5N1 flu virus beyond its current stronghold in southeast Asia, it could devastate poultry farms and raise the risk of a deadly flu pandemic in people, experts said, according to AP. «They're going to spread this ... thing further and further across central Asia and Europe and who knows where,» said Robert G. Webster of the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, an author of a report released Wednesday by the journal Nature. Another report, released by the journal Science, said the finding of the H5N1 infection in migrant birds at Qinghai Lake in western China «indicates that this virus has the potential to be a global threat.» The reports echo concerns voiced last week by the World Health Organization, which urged China to step up its testing of wild geese and gulls. A WHO official estimated that the flu had killed more than 5,000 wild birds in western China. --More 2024 Local Time 1724 GMT
