U.N. Bird Flu Chief: Expect More Cases

A man in a protective white suit walks from a container, at at a turkey farm in Holton, England, where authorities are culling many thousands of turkeys in response to a confirmed outbreak of bird flu, Sunday Feb. 4, 2007. Health officials on Sunday announced new restrictions on movement near a commercial farm where the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu was found in turkeys, while authorities culled thousands of birds to contain the outbreak. (AP Photo / Lewis Whyld, PA (Lewis Whyld - Pa)

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- The world should expect more bird flu outbreaks in the coming months, the U.N. official coordinating the global fight against the virus warned Sunday after Britain recorded its first case of the H5N1 strain on a commercial farm.

Dr. David Nabarro said, however, that he did not expect the virus to spread in Britain to neighboring farms because of the quick containment measures put in place by the government.

"This should mean that there won't therefore be spread ... into other parts in the vicinity," he told The Associated Press in Indonesia, the country worst hit by the virus. "That is what I hope, but of course we will see over the next few days."

He said countries around the world where the virus was not endemic would likely see more cases in poultry before June, mostly spread by migrating birds.

"I am expecting to see outbreaks of highly pathogenic avian influenza in a number of locations over the next three or four months, and I am basing it on what happened last year," he said, stressing that the risk to human health remained very small.

Nabarro said a recent spike in human deaths in Indonesia meant the country must do more to fight the virus despite improving its efforts in recent months, including the slaughter of backyard chickens in the capital last week.

"Just at the moment there are rather a lot of (cases) ... so that is why everybody needs to be a little anxious about what is happening and everybody needs to be forceful on moving rapidly and strongly forward with intensifying measures."

H5N1 has prompted the slaughter of millions of birds across Asia since late 2003 and caused the deaths of more than 160 people worldwide, around a third of them in Indonesia, according to the World Health Organization.

Most people killed so far have been infected by domestic fowl and the virus remains very hard for humans to catch. But experts fear it could mutate into a form that easily spreads among humans, sparking a pandemic with the potential to kill millions.