Associated Press
Tuesday, December 5, 2006

The federal government has been looking in the wrong direction for signs that bird flu has arrived on the U.S. mainland, research suggests.

A study in the latest issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that birds flying north from Latin America are more likely to bring the H5N1 virus to the United States than are those migrating from Asia.

The United States' $29 million bird flu surveillance program has focused heavily on migratory birds flying from Asia to Alaska.

Yet those birds present a much lower risk than do migratory birds that come into contact with the hundreds of thousands of chickens imported each year to Central America and Mexico, said A. Marm Kilpatrick, lead author of the study.

"Current American surveillance plans that focus primarily on the Alaskan migratory bird pathway may fail to detect the introduction of H5N1 into the United States in time to prevent its spread into domestic poultry," the study concluded.

U.S. officials cautioned that the study is not the final authority on the spread and prevention of bird flu.

"When you look at scientific literature, it's a big puzzle. This puts in a few more pieces," said David Swayne, director of the Agriculture Department's Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory in Athens, Ga.

In addition, Agriculture Department officials said they are not focusing exclusively on Alaska.