Every country in the world now needs to have its veterinary services on high alert for H5N1 to be sure they are not caught unawares.

Every country in the world now needs to have its veterinary services on high alert for H5N1 to be sure they are not caught unawares.

The virus is moving quite substantially into new locations. My attention is pretty much equally divided between Europe, the southern Balkans and Black Sea area, Africa and south Asia.

What is important to me is there has been consensus and clarity, (and) much better coordination. We'll be much quicker to control avian influenza as a result.

This outbreak is moving ahead of efforts to control it.

There are some quite tricky challenges facing everybody working in Crimea and I shall be engaging with various government people.

If there is delay in getting culling teams out, delay in any part of the chain, even weeks, that could have great implications for the virus to spread.