The World Health Organization is sounding the alarm over H5N1 bird flu becoming human pandemic. Analysts are calling for immediate mass vaccinations of poultry.

The virus is already responsible for killing 54 people in Asia and appears to spread only by close interaction of humans with sick birds or infected poultry

Christina Ficara - All Headline News Staff Reporter

The warning follows the deaths of 5,000 migratory birds in the outbreak, in Qinghai province; which is five times greater than China's official estimate

The first reported strain of bird flu virus has been confirmed on a poultry farm in Mitsukaido, Ibaraki Prefecture.

Local media reported that officials from the agriculture ministry and Ibaraki prefectural government stated the bird flu virus is far less virulent than the avian flu virus that infected farms last year, and only a small percentage of chickens infected in Mitsukaido have died

A World Health Organization official said on Friday that the avian flu virus is growing at a rapid pace. He also advises intensified vigilance, as the strain of Chinese avian flu seems to have increased in virulence.

"The virus remains unstable, unpredictable and very versatile," The Shigeru Omi, the WHO's Western Pacific regional director, Stated. "Anything could happen," he added, "Judging from the way the virus has behaved it may have new and unpleasant surprises in store for us

China has isolated it's nature reserves and sent more than 3 million doses of bird flu vaccine to a remote western province after migratory birds were found dead from the H5N1 strain of bird-flu.

Poultry across far-flung Qinghai province, neighboring Tibet and Xinjiang, had become the "target of a compulsory vaccination campaign", reportedthe China Daily newspaper story