The World Health Organization is concerned that a deadly strain of bird flu, that has already killed more than 50 people in Asian countries might mutate into a form that can be passed from one person to another and create a global pandemic.

WHO spokesman Peter Cordingley says so far there is no conclusive proof of human-to-human transmission. "We have found a couple of cases that were very suspicious, but we couldn't actually hammer that nail home

Officials in Vietnam, the country hit hardest by the bird flu epidemic, say they may not be able to contain the virus until 2007, because many experts are still baffled by the way it spreads. Health officials are uncertain how the virus spreads from waterfowl to poultry, and then to people. "There are cases where a healthy person carries the virus without showing clinical symptoms, which has made the risk of spreading the virus in the community greater," Deputy Health Minister Tran Chi Liem said. Since its arrival to Asia in late 2003, H5NI, has infected 71 Vietnamese and killed 36. Now, the World Health Organization fears the virus may mutate into a new form that would spread easier among people and cause a global pandemic in which millions would die. "If the virus changes, it will be the biggest global health crisis," said Hans Troedsson, the WHO representative in Vietnam, predicting "50 to 100 million deaths in the worst situation". Bird flu has killed 51 people in Asia - 36 Vietnamese, including 15 since December, 12 Thais and three Cambodians - since arriving in Asia in late 2003, brought probably by migrating wild fowl

World health organization (WHO) has claimed that 15 out of 18 countries to which the bird flu virus H2N2 was sent have been able to destroy the virus panels they received earlier. In a dramatic announcement on April 12, WHO alerted that influenza A/H2N2-containing testing kits were distributed by mistake to 3747 laboratories in 18 countries worldwide. The health officials in Canada and the U.S. first detected the faulty distribution. According to the WHO statement, 77 % of the labs have so far reportedly destroyed almost 90% of the virus in nearly 5000 H2N2-conataining testing panels or testing kits. Ten countries or regions that have reportedly wiped out the H2N2 virus are Hong Kong, Belgium, Singapore, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Italy, South Korea and Taiwan. Five countries that are in the process of destroying the virus are USA, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Israel and Chile. The H2N2 bird flu virus is a variety of "Asian Flu" that once wrecked havoc by killing between 1 million and 4 million people worldwide in 1957. But, WHO is still worrying about the fact that the update on two shipments sent to Mexico and Lebanon is still not available. WHO officials suspect that either these two shipments have never reached the laboratories in those two countries or they have gone missing