Medical and veterinary experts from across Europe have advised EU states to coordinate their actions to deal with the threat of bird flu.

The experts' meeting in Brussels on Thursday was the first such EU summit to focus on the disease, which has killed dozens of people in Asia.

There have been no cases of bird flu among humans in the EU, but the lethal H5N1 strain of it has reached Russia.

There are fears the virus could mutate, jump species and cause a pandemic.