The H5N1 bird flu virus remains a powerful threat to animals and humans, and the most vulnerable regions include southeast Asia, Africa, eastern Europe and the Caucasus, the U.N. food agency said Wednesday. «The possibility of a human pandemic hangs over us,» the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization warned in a statement to be read at Thursday's donor conference in Bamako, Mali. «Failure by any one country to contain the disease could lead to rapid re-infection in many more countries,» said Alexander Muller, assistant director-general at FAO. «Oneweak link can lead to a domino effect, undoing all the good that we have achieved so far. Now is no time for complacency.» Several regions remain particularly vulnerable because of a shortfall in donor funding, the Rome-based agency said, according to a report of the Associated Press.
