We’ve never seen a disease spread out as much as this one has in the past 18 months to two years.

There are other ways diseases move around the world.It could be that wildlife introduced the virus, but through our own activities of commerce, the disease spread.

I would love to have a map of illegal trade – but I’m embarrassed to say we don’t have a good handle on it. We all know it occurs and we are worried, but what...

We don’t know how the disease got into Nigeria.

The risk to humans is less if the disease is in wildlife than if it is in poultry.

Markets go throughout Kurdistan and occur on mules and donkeys who cross borders here and there. And chickens are small. It’s quite difficult to control.

The details are still sketchy, and how extensive the problem is still not known, although there are quite a few deaths.

If the government is just there to kill the animals and cull them there is the possibility that the farmers won’t report cases.

They cordoned off the area and increased a surveillance zone to about 10 kilometers. Because some of the poultry were inside the 10-kilometer area, they were sequestered — no movement in, no movement out. There...

I have praise for the European countries because they have they have implemented their surveillance and identified the virus in migratory birds. This shows us the surveillance is working.

Infected poultry should be reported immediately and all internationally recommended control measures should be used in outbreak areas, including humane culling, strict isolation and, if and when appropriate, vaccination.

This is unlikely to make any significant contribution to the protection of humans against avian influenza.

They are learning to live with the disease and control it when it appears.

People need to be informed about the importance of basic hygiene notably washing hands after touching poultry and disinfecting boots or shoes before entering or leaving a poultry farm. They should also be aware of...

We are still in time to be able to prevent the virus from being endemic in Turkey if the Turkish veterinary services have enough resources.

The measures are an example of how governments should move to contain the virus once it is detected.

It is important to underline that there is no evidence that the H5N1 virus is present in poultry in Italy. At the moment, the disease remains confined to individual cases in wild birds only.

A complete cull of all rural poultry in the country is not necessary and we were very vocal about this when I was there [in Turkey].

How extensive the problem is in India is still not known.

Immediate reporting by poultry keepers and their community leaders is the biggest safeguard for people?s health status.

We’re been looking for it in wild birds for the last two months and it is surprising that we’ve come up with zero.

It’s very easy to blame bird migration, because then no one’s responsible. Migrating birds may introduce the virus into an area, but it is human activity that spreads it.

We still have time to prevent the pathology from becoming an epidemic if Turkish veterinary services receive the necessary aid from international organizations.

I think that wild birds may introduce the virus but it is through man and man’s marketing systems (the poultry trade) that the disease spreads. It is also possible that poultry can transmit the virus...

Avian influenza has not been a priority for Indonesians.

Are there more out there that we do not know of?

What we are seeing is that the surveillance system in Europe is very, very good, since we’re picking up disease in migrating swans. If anything, this should increase people’s confidence in their food. We’re seeing...

It’s easy to blame migrating birds, because then no one is responsible.

It’s like looking at bread crumbs, but you don’t see the whole loaf.

Poultry meat and eggs … are safe, and the concern is to ensure that there is no spillover from wildlife to poultry production systems.

We don’t have a spread of the virus, what we have is the introduction of the virus into countries of the European Union. The difference is that it’s human activities, through commerce, through the market...

The virus may be spreading despite the control measures already taken.

Killing wild birds will not help prevent or control avian influenza outbreaks.

We encouraged the countries to increase surveillance. But I’m not a policeman. What I can do is to ask governments to be more vigilant.

Such plans and field operations must be fully supported by national governments with participation of the private sector. The international community should continue to provide expertise and financial resources.