The European Union pledged $100 million in aid to boost the global fight against bird flu on Friday and Turkey stepped up the culling of birds to try to stop the deadly virus spreading further, according to Reuters. Makers of the Tamiflu drug, the best known defence against the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, said on Friday they would donate more antiviral pills to Asia, the epicentre of the threat to global health. The European Union funding comes after World Bank member states endorsed aid worth $500 million to tackle a virus that has jumped from birds to humans and has killed at least 78. A British laboratory found that two of the first Turkish victims were infected with a slightly mutated strain of H5N1. Although it did not seem to be more dangerous, the mutation in theory could help the virus more easily pass from a chicken to a human. Of gravest concern is that the H5N1 virus will mutate so it passes from human to human. The human victims of the disease had all been in east Asia until the recent outbreak in Turkey brought the virus towards the edge of Europe.
