The World Health Organisation yesterday said that the bird flu 'risk is global' and United Nations' experts warned that the virus will spread among animals and pose a serious risk to farming in neighbouring countries. The WHO also warned that Asia remained at greatest risk for the spread of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus.

Dr Marc Danzon, the UN health agency's regional director for Europe, told reporters at a news conference with Turkish Health Minister Recep Akdag that health officials were doing "everything that is known to maintain and manage this difficult situation."

However, he added: "The risk is global ... We need to exercise solidarity."

In Rome, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation cautioned that the Turkish outbreak could spread to farms in neighbouring countries.

"The virus may be spreading despite the control measures already taken," said Juan Lubroth, senior animal health officer at the agency.

"Far more human and animal exposure to the virus will occur if strict containment does not isolate all ocations where the bird flu virus is currently present."

Danzon said there were no signs that the deadly strain, which preliminary tests indicate has infected 15 Turks - including two children who have died - was being transmitted person to person.

"There is no transmission from human being to human being through a mutation that could cause a pandemic. We are not there at this point," he said. Health experts have warned of the possibility that H5N1 could mutate into a potent form easily passed between people, triggering a pandemic capable of killing millions worldwide.

The WHO said bird flu had killed two more people in China, bringing the total number of humans killed by the disease in that country to five and pushing the death toll worldwide to 78.

The WHO's spokesman in Beijing, Roy Wadia, said the latest two to die were a a 10-year-old girl in the southern region of Guangxi on December 16 and a 35-year-old man in the eastern province of Jiangxi province on December 30.

In Turkey, all of the cases appeared to have involved adults or children who touched or played with infected birds.

The European Union decided to continue monitoring wild birds and poultry until year end, and neighbouring Greece and Bulgaria stepped up border checks, the disinfecting of trucks from Turkey and the distribution of pamphlets warning of the risks.

Syria also tightened border controls, stepping up checks on Turks entering Syria to visit families during the Muslim festival of Eid.

Officials in northern Iraq have banned the imports of birds from Turkey.

"The provincial government in the northern Kurdish enclave also has banned the selling of live bird in markets," Shamal Abid Waffal, the minister of agriculture in the northern province of Kurdistan said.

The regional government has also formed a committee to inspect bird farms and is telling people to watch for warning signs of the disease.

Turkey's government, anxious to demonstrate that it was taking decisive action, ordered more than 300,000 fowl destroyed as a precaution.

Health officials said most of the 70 or so people hospitalised with flu-like symptoms had tested negative for bird flu.

WHO also said that more people are likely to be infected by the virus in Asia ahead of this month's Lunar New Year holidays, when consumption of poultry rises.

Shigeru Omi, WHO's regional director for the Western Pacific, urged people to avoid close contact with birds to avoid being infected with the H5N1 strain of avian flu.

The Lunar New Year is China's main annual festival and is also celebrated widely in Vietnam and among Chinese communities across Southeast Asia.

Omi, who is in Tokyo for a two-day conference of Asian nations to discuss steps to contain a possible pandemic, urged developing countries where people live close to poultry to change such customs.

"Developing countries are urged to improve their husbandry practices particularly in rural areas ... It is a difficult change, but if you like to avert this pandemic, that is something that needs to be done at any cost."

PHOTO CAPTION

A chicken peers from a bag after being collected, with other poultry, by Turkish Agriculture Ministry employees in a small village near the eastern Turkish town of Dogubayazit, Thursday, Jan. 12, 2006. (AP)