Scientists gather in Rome to discuss bird flu

Three years after the first outbreaks of bird flu in Asia, experts are still puzzling at how the disease spread across three continents so quickly and how wild birds have helped disseminate the deadly virus.

More than 300 scientists and animal experts started discussing these and other questions at a two-day conference, which opened in Rome today.

The meeting was organised by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, based in Rome, and by the Paris-based World Organisation for Animal Health. Experts were invited from about 100 countries.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed at least 127 people worldwide and ravaged poultry flocks in Asia, Europe and Africa, but experts are still unsure if migrating birds or the commercial poultry trade deserve most of the blame for spreading the disease.

Experts also wonder why the virus, widespread in south-east Asia since 2003, only started moving across the continent to Europe and Africa last year, said Samuel Jutzi, director of FAO’s animal production and health division.