Bird flu blown out of proportion, claims food expert

THE bird flu threat was blown out of proportion by the public health community, a leading American food expert claimed yesterday.

Professor Michael Doyle told an international conference in Dublin that enormous media coverage had raised fears of the potential for avian viruses to become pandemic strains that would lead to unstoppable human-to-human transmission.

However, the US Centre for Disease Control is advising that the mutated high pathogen strain of the flu, H5 N1, could not transmit easily to other animals.