A human pandemic of bird flu can be avoided, provided rich nations channel funds to poorer countries to help them report and contain the disease in birds, an official at the Paris-based World Organization for Animal Health said. «In our opinion, the first line of defense is to mobilize resources and tackle the problem in the bird rather than focusing on anti-virals and vaccines,» Alejandro Thiermann, head of the group's standard-setting committee for terrestrial animals, told The Associated Press. The virus has killed or led to the slaughter of millions of birds, mostly in Asia, but also in parts of Europe. It has killed more than 60 people in Asia, mostly poultry workers, but global health officials fear the virus could mutate and start spreading from person to person. «If we can minimize the presence of the virus in poultry, and therefore minimize the number of occurrences of poultry to human (infection), we may never see the adaptation of the virus from human to human in a pandemic form,» Thiermann said. He noted that it was still very rare for humans to become infected. «It's not a food safety issue and there's no reported evidence of people getting sick from consuming poultry products.» Donor countries were expected to discuss at a conference in Geneva in November potential aid to developing countries to strengthen their health infrastructures and teach villages to report the disease.
