"For that reason, rapid international assistance to Nigeria and support to neighboring countries is critical and the decision by WHO and FAO to provide urgent extensive support is the right one," Nabarro said.
Nigerian officials yesterday were investigating a suspected outbreak of a deadly strain of bird flu on a chicken farm in the Rafukka district of Katsina City, 170km north of the nearest previously confirmed outbreak.
Elsewhere an Indonesian woman from West Java province died of bird flu overnight, an official said yesterday.
It was the second death within days from the deadly virus in the town of Bekasi, near Jakarta.
A spokesman said that another man was suspected of dying of bird flu on Friday night, but officials were waiting for local test results.
Indonesia is seen as a potential flashpoint because of its high density of people and of poultry.
Meanwhile, an eighth person has died in China from H5N1 avian influenza, the government said yesterday.
The 20-year-old woman developed fever after killing poultry that she kept at her home in the central Hunan Province, the health ministry said.
The case was the 12th human infection with bird flu reported in China, where several human cases have been found in areas where no infections were reported in wild birds or poultry.
In a further development, the Italian health ministry said yesterday it was making checks for "probable cases" of bird flu in the country.
A one-line statement did not say if the checks were for suspected cases of infected birds or humans.
The Italian news agency ANSA said the cases involved birds that were infected in the southern island of Sicily.
RSS