– Bird flu flares up in China, Vietnam

China and Vietnam reported new bird flu outbreaks in poultry yesterday despite massive prevention efforts, while Japan prepared to destroy 180,000 birds to stop a suspected outbreak and Thailand announced plans to distribute its own generic antiviral drug.

As global jitters mounted, a meeting of ministers from 17 African nations appealed to the continent’s governments to share resources, warning that migratory birds from Europe and Asia could carry the virus to their shores.

”The first birds should hit the continent in two to three weeks,” said Aberra Deressa, Ethiopia’s agriculture minister, at the conference in Kigali, Rwanda. ”We cannot move separately, we have to move together or we will fail.”

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