"If action had been taken promptly, the damage wouldn't have been great and the risks to humans could have been minimized," said Chairul Nidom of the Center for Tropical Diseases at Airlangga University in Surabaya.
After its emergence in Asia in 2003, the highly pathogenic Asian strain of H5N1 spread this month, with outbreaks confirmed in Turkey, Romania, Russia and in a parrot that died in quarantine in Britain.
In Croatia, authorities confirmed swans had a bird flu virus but were awaiting tests to show whether it was the deadly H5N1 strain.
RSS