Asia unites in bid to stamp out bird flu

Southeast Asian agriculture ministers have agreed to launch a three-year plan next year aimed at stamping out the menace of bird flu in the region – a move they hope will win enough international aid to halt the disease before it becomes a catastrophic global epidemic with the potential to kill millions.

The ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations said in a statement yesterday that “the highly pathogenic avian influenza,” which has ravaged poultry populations in large swaths of Asia and killed dozens of people, requires “an all-out co-ordinated regional effort.”