48-year-old man dies of bird flu in Thailand

A 48-year-old Thai man who was the 67th person known to have been killed by a virus steadily creeping from Asia into Europe and towards Africa.In Indonesia, possible clusters of bird flu among members of the same family raised concern the virus had already mutated into a strain that can pass from human to human, which could start a global pandemic that scientists say could kill millions.

In Russia, emergency workers were killing domestic and wild fowl in and near a bird flu-affected village south of Moscow while the World Health Organization said China had destroyed 91,100 birds around a farm in the country's north to stop a bird flu outbreak. The birds were culled after 2,600 chickens and ducks died of the H5N1 strain of the virus in a breeding facility in a village in the Inner Mongolia region, Washington Post reports.

A father and son are being treated at a Jakarta hospital for symptoms of the virus but the diagnosis has mot been confirmed. Amid worrying signs the deadly virus was spreading across Siberia to the Mediterranean along the pathways of migratory birds, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization warned Wednesday of a marked increase in chances that bird flu would move to the Middle East and Africa - and hit countries poorly equipped to deal with an outbreak.

All the human deaths from avian flu have so far been in Asia but the deadly H5N1 strain was detected this month in birds in Russia, Turkey and Romania, worsening fears in Europe and battering sales of eggs and poultry in several countries, Reuters reports. A.M.