CHRONOLOGY-Bird flu developments

Dec 6 (Reuters) - Experts fighting bird flu around the world met in Mali on Wednesday to replenish their war chest and plot the next stage of their campaign to control the disease and avert a devastating human flu pandemic.

Here is a brief chronology of some of the major bird flu developments in 2006:

Jan 18 - International donors pledge $1.9 billion to combat the spread of bird flu at a conference in Beijing.

Feb 8 - The first African cases of the deadly H5N1 strain are detected in poultry in the northern Nigerian states of Kano, Kaduna and Plateau.

Feb 11/12 - Italy says six wild swans found in Sicily and on the southern mainland tested positive for H5N1. In Greece, three swans found south of Thessaloniki test positive for H5N1. These are the first known cases of the strain in the EU. Several countries later report outbreaks in wild birds.

Feb 17 - Egypt finds its first cases of H5N1 in chickens.

Feb 18 - India announces its first cases of H5N1, finding the virus in poultry in a western state.

Feb 22 - The EU approves plans by France and the Netherlands to vaccinate millions of hens, ducks and geese against bird flu.

Feb 25 - France confirms H5N1 at a farm in the east where thousands of turkeys have died. It is the first case of the virus in domestic farm birds in the EU.

May 11 - Djibouti announces its first case of human H5N1, the first confirmed case in a person in the Horn of Africa.

July 26 - Pharmaceuticals group GlaxoSmithKline Plc says a bird flu vaccine for humans that uses only a very low dose of active ingredient has proved effective in clinical tests.

Aug 8 - China says its first H5N1 human case was in 2003, and not in 2005 as it had originally reported.

Sept 26 - WHO's new influenza pandemic task force calls on countries to share all virus samples and genetic sequencing data, key to developing a vaccine against a bird flu pandemic.

Sept 28 - China shares long-sought after samples of H5N1 in what many scientists view as a breakthrough in cooperation.

Oct 31 - Scientists in Hong Kong and the United States say they have detected a new strain of H5N1 bird flu virus in China and say it may have started another wave of outbreaks in poultry in Southeast Asia and may move deeper into Eurasia. China later rejects the report.

Nov 28 - South Korea says it has found a second case of H5N1 bird flu at a poultry farm, after confirming days earlier it had its first outbreak in three years of the strain.

Nov 29 - WHO confirms another death in Indonesia. The global death toll stands at 154.

Dec 6 - A three-day meeting begins in Mali, the fourth global bird flu summit in a year. This meeting includes a donor conference to secure $1.2 - $1.5 billion over 2-3 years to add to $1.9 billion pledged in Beijing last January.

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