A report from the Trust for America's Health non-profit group predicted Friday that half a million Americans could die and more than 2 millions could end up in the hospital with serious complications if an even moderately severe strain of a pandemic flu hits.

The group warns the United States only has 965,256 staffed hospital beds, an insufficient amount in the event a pandemic does hit

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

The United States still has no licensed vaccine to prevent avian flu and has nowhere near enough drugs to treat the sick if there is an epidemic, experts told Congress on Thursday.

Hospitals have too little capacity to deal with the huge numbers of people who would become sick and the U.S. Health and Human Services Department does not have a plan for dealing with an epidemic, the experts said

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

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