According to U. N Officials, over the past five years, great steps have been taken in several nations in eradicating the H5N1 virus, or avian flu. But, the peril still remains.

The Food and Agriculture Organization said that the intensive global attempt has divested the virus from poultry in almost all the nations it contaminated at the peak of its outbreak in 2006.

It is said to still be ingrained in Egypt, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Vietnam and China.

Over the years, the virus has compelled the gathering of 260 million birds and led $20 billion in financial damage. H5N1 is held responsible for 292 human deaths.

It is said that avian flu is one of the issues being talked about at the International Ministerial Conference on Animal and Pandemic Influenza, underway in Hanoi.

Dr. Juan Lubroth, FAO’s Chief Veterinary Officer, stated, “If we look at the last couple of years and now in 2010, of the 63 or so countries and areas, we really only have a problem of H5N1 still in circulation in five countries or regions where the virus is entrenched in the poultry population”.

Lubroth also said that interference measures have been inadequate in some regions.

The well-establishment of H5N1 in Egypt, may branch from the manner poultry has been conventionally formed and marketed in the past centuries.

It is said that health officials, for long feared the jump of avian flu to the human populace and its rapid spread, in spite of the comparatively less figure of deaths from the flu.