UN unveils plan to tackle bird flu

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.

The job is hard, “but we are not powerless,” Dr. Shigeru Omi of the World Health Organisation said at the end of a Malaysia conference of animal, health and food experts tasked with combating avian influenza.