A possible indication that H5N1 bird flu is mutating towards a form adapted to humans has emerged from British scientists.

A bird flu outbreak in northern China that sparked the culling of about 370,000 birds lies along a migration route that spans from East Asia to Australia, it was reported today, as officials continued killing thousands of birds east of Beijing.

A bird-flu outbreak has killed 545 chickens and ducks in a village in central China in the country’s third case of the disease in two weeks, the government announced today.

INVESTIGATORS have determined that a strain of bird flu virus infecting fowl in Russia is the type that can infect humans, the Agriculture Ministry said today.