The UN has issued a grim warning on the “critical” bird flu situation in Indonesia.

“I am deeply concerned that the high level of virus circulation in birds in the country could create conditions for the virus to mutate and to finally cause a human influenza pandemic,” Joseph Domenech, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s chief veterinary officer, warned yesterday (press release, news coverage from the US, Russia, India, Europe).

Indonesia has a worse H5N1 problem than any other country, with 31 out of its 33 provinces infected, and the virus endemic in Java, Sumatra, Bali and southern Sulawesi. Current vaccines may be failing to protect the 1.4 billion chickens in Indonesia from the disease

“The human mortality rate from bird flu in Indonesia is the highest in the world and there will be more human cases if we do not focus more on containing the disease at source in animals,” says Domenech.

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