International health experts today unveiled a multi-pronged strategy against bird flu calling for Asian governments to overhaul backyard farming practices and vaccinate poultry to prevent the disease from becoming a human pandemic.

Drug companies will not be able to make enough vaccine to prevent the next global flu pandemic, which health officials fear may be triggered by a viral strain originating in birds, a senior World Health Organisation (WHO) official said today.

After almost a year of trying to bring Asia’s bird flu under control, World Health Organisation experts are now warning that the disease is the most likely candidate to cause the world’s next pandemic, with the possibility of as many as seven million deaths.

THE discovery of a lethal strain of bird flu in Chinese pigs has taken the world closer to a human flu pandemic but there is no need to panic yet, the World Health Organisation said yesterday.

TAIWAN health authorities said a military medical researcher had contracted SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), sparking alerts across Asia of a possible resurgence of the killer virus.

A Taiwanese scientist who tested positive for SARS today failed to follow safety guidelines and wear protective gloves and a gown while studying the virus, a World Health Organisation Official said.

THE World Health Organisation lifted its travel warning against Beijing yesterday, giving a clean bill of health to the capital of the nation where the SARS outbreak began.

The World Health Organisation today praised China for improved transparency and a “strong political commitment” to combating SARS, which it said has diminished as a global threat.

A Japanese woman was allegedly raped on Okinawa island today, and a witness said the attack appeared to involve US servicemen, police said.