Russia's top state epidemiologist said on Monday that a bird flu outbreak in Siberia could spread through Russia's key agricultural areas in the south and then on to the Middle East and Mediterranean countries.
"An analysis of bird migration routes has shown that in autumn 2005...the H5N1 virus may be spread from Western Siberia to the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea," Gennady Onishchenko said in a letter to Russian regional health officials.
The letter was posted on the Website of the state's consumer rights watchdog.
"Apart from Russia's south, migrating birds may spread the virus to nearby countries (Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq, Georgia, Ukraine, Mediterranian countries) because bird migration routes from Siberia also go through those regions in autumn," he said in the letter.
But when will it mutate into a virulent human disease? |