headed geese at China's remote saltwater lake, which is a key breeding location for migratory birds that overwinter in southeast Asia, Tibet and India. The virus has hit that species the hardest, but also affects brown-headed gulls and great black-headed gulls. The H5N1 virus has been entrenched in poultry in southeast Asia since 2003, and variants of it infect people. Webster said the Qinghai Lake virus is genetically different from the one that has been infecting people in Vietnam, but it is a «first cousin ... not far away at all.» That implies it has the potential for infecting people, probably by way of domestic chickens or ducks, he said. If a bird flu virus infects a person who also carries a human flu virus, the result could be a hybrid bug that passes easily from person to person. «That's the spark that sets off ... a global pandemic, and that's what everyone is worried about,» said flu expert Dr. William Schaffner of Vanderbilt University. The Science report comes from George F. Gao of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing with colleagues there and elsewhere in China. In lab experiments, they found the virus killed chickens and mice. --More 2027 Local Time 1727 GMT
