UNITED NATIONS (AP)--The virulent strain of bird flu could reach the Americas in six to 12 months or even sooner following its rapid expansion through Asia, Europe and Africa, the U.N. bird flu chief said.
Dr. David Nabarro said wild birds are carrying the H5N1 virus and their migratory patterns will probably take some infected birds from West Africa to the Arctic and Alaska this spring. Some infected birds will then likely move south in the fall on a different migratory route into the Americas, he said Wednesday.
"I think it's within the next six to 12 months," Nabarro told a news conference, "And who knows - we've been wrong on other things, it may be earlier."
The chief concern about the H5N1 flu in wild birds is that the virus might make its way into chickens, damaging poultry industries and posing a hazard for adults and children who work with chickens.
So far, human cases are uncommon and virtually all people who have gotten bird flu have had close contact with infected poultry. But scientists worry that the virus may mutate into a form that can pass easily between people which could lead to a worldwide flu epidemic.
Nabarro reiterated the World Health Organization's warning that "there will be a pandemic sooner or later" in humans, perhaps due to H5N1, perhaps due to another influenza virus, and it could start any time.
There is already an epidemic in bird flu - called "an epizootic" in animals - which is gradually transforming itself into a pandemic, or "panzootic," he said.
"Because it is moving and because we believe wild birds are implicated, predicting where it's going to flare up next is a very tricky thing to do, and being able to know the scale of the flare-up is also quite tricky," Nabarro said.
The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health are "very challenged by the expansion in the incidence of avian influenza that's occurred during the last three months as it's moved through Eastern Europe, into Western Europe into the Middle East, into India, into Africa," he said. "And they're expecting it to continue to expand."
Nabarro said the U.N. is focusing on reducing the amount of H5N1 in poultry, through culling and vaccinations.
The FAO and the Organization for Animal Health are putting together "an emergency cadre of vets who are able to travel to troublespots in the world where there is avian influenza at a moment's notice," he said.
The prime focus at the moment is on Africa, especially West Africa where 50% of the people live on less than $1 a day and many families rely on chickens for their economic livelihood and have no money to build coops or buy soap to help prevent H5N1 infections, he said.
"There is a regional crisis in West Africa associated with H5N1," with Nigeria and Niger already affected, Nabarro said. "But we are frankly anticipating that we will find the virus in other West African countries andthere is a lot of preparatory work under way."
In Western Europe, there are a lot of reports of H5N1 in dead wild birds from an increasing number of countries "but there are very few instances of movement of the virus into the domestic and commercial poultry populations," he said.
One or two cats are also reported to have H5N1 and WHO says more research is needed on transmission to other mammals, he said.
In the Middle East, H5N1 is still being reported in Egypt, Iran and Iraq and human cases are continuing in Indonesia and China, Nabarro said.
The U.S. government hopes to test 75,000 to 100,000 live or dead birds this year, a significant increase over past years, and much of the effort will focus on Alaska, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture officials.
"Some of the challenges we face now are really quite dramatic and call for a lot of technical expertise," Nabarro said.
For example, FAO reported last September that wild birds are able to carry the H5N1 without showing symptoms, yet swans in Western Europe are dying from the strain and nobody knows why, he said.
Nabarro said an international conference on wild birds will be held in June, which will hopefully include the results of research now under way. The next major international review of global bird flu efforts will also be in June, he said.
He said he expected to be in Nigeria early next week, and the week after he plans to attend a meeting of 40 nations in Gabon's capital, Libreville, on preparedness. Then he heads to Asia and is also planning to visit the Arab League, though no date has been set.
"We have to behave as though this could start any time, because if we don't we'll put off getting prepared," Nabarro said.