Bird flu spreads to 60 countries, pandemic risk still high: UN

UNITED NATIONS - Bird flu in poultry and wild birds spread to 60 countries but is entrenched only in six because of improved and faster responses, experts said.

Despite those strides, the risk of a worldwide human-to-human pandemic remains as great today as it was when the hard-to-treat H5N1 flu strain first gained intense attention in mid-2005, said a new report by Dr. David Nabarro, the UN official co-ordinating the global fight against avian influenza, and World Bank officials.

"We think it will happen sometime but we don't know when or where," Nabarro said Thursday.

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