WHO: Bird Flu Pandemic Is Inevitable

Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Lee Jong Wook said November 7 that a pandemic of the human form of bird flue is inevitable.

"It is only a question of time for the bird flu virus, most probably strain H5N1, to start passing from man to man, thus causing a flu pandemic among people", he said, speaking at an international conference on fighting bird flu in Geneva.

"We don't know when it would happen. But we do know that it will happen", stressed Lee Jong Wook. According to the high-ranking physician, each country should work out a national plan of action to fight a possible bird flu pandemic.

According to WHO data, over the last two years at least 150 million birds died of virus H5N1 first in Asia and then in Europe.

Since December 2003, out of 124 persons infected with the human form of bird flue 63 died. The disease was first identified in 1997. Then 16 people got infected in Hong Kong, and 6 of them died.