Three young women in Azerbaijan have died from suspected bird flu, taking the death toll from the virus beyond 100, while secretive Myanmar on Tuesday tackled its first outbreak in birds.
Adding to fears over bird flu, India said it had detected a fresh outbreak in poultry in Maharashtra, the scene of the country's first brush with the virus last month.
The United States, so far spared bird flu, is treating avian flu as a scourge that will inevitably reach its shores, US Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said in Berlin on Tuesday.
The Azeri victims, who died in recent weeks, fell ill after contact with sick birds and were not thought to have infected each other, local health officials said.
Azerbaijan, which lies on a crossroads between Asia and Europe, reported its first bird flu deaths overnight, citing results from tests at a mobile laboratory borrowed from a US Naval facility in Cairo.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said it believed the tests were reliable, adding it awaited results from a British laboratory before confirming the H5N1 virus was to blame.
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