The United Nations has warned that Asia's bird flu epidemic is not under control and will get worse unless emergency response measures are taken.
The organisation says the virus is likely to spread to other countries - and to more people - unless measures such as targeted vaccinations are taken.
The warning come as the bird flu death toll rises to 17.
THE 1918 influenza pandemic that killed some 20 million people worldwide was likely made possible by a virus that evolved from an avian virus, with slight changes that made it bind to human cells with deadly ease, researchers said today.
While the findings do not apply directly to the avian flu strain afoot, researchers say the data underscore how slight alterations in the influenza virus's infectivity could spawn a major epidemic.
The studies released on the website of the US journal Science detail the research of international researchers who were able to sequence parts of the genome of the 1918 influenza.
They emerged from a long collaboration between the late Don Wiley of Harvard University, who died in an accident in 2001; and Sir John Skehel, of the Medical Research Council's National Institute for Medical Research in London.
Skehel said researchers sought to understand how the 1918 version of the protein hemaglutinin could bind to receptors on human cells while retaining characteristics of its avian precursor virus.
Skehel said the current strain of avian flu that has killed people in Asia exposed to infected birds is closer to that of the Hong Kong flu.
"But presumably what's blocking this current flu from spreading person-to-person is that its hemaglutinin structure has not yet evolved such that it can efficiently infect humans," Skehel said.