As the EU last night agreed a one-month ban on the import of live birds into the Union to stem the spread of the potentially deadly avian flu, another death from the disease was announced in Indonesia.
The latest victim was a 23- year-old man from Bogor, West Java, the fourth victim of the bird flu in that country.
According to the World Health Organisation, this brings the human death toll throughout Asia to 62 - 41 in Vietnam, 13 in Thailand, four in Indonesia and four in Cambodia. Those who have died had been near fowl.
There has only been one suspected case of a human passing on the disease to another person having contracted the disease from birds.
Britain, which holds the EU presidency, pushed for the blanket ban on imports following the discovery last week that an imported parrot in quarantine had died of the lethal H5NI strain of bird flu.
It had been kept adjacent to other exotic birds which had been imported from Asia and developed the disease. All the birds were slaughtered.
Britain had originally opposed a blanket ban on imports saying it would not be proportionate to the risk. However yesterday, its representatives at the EU's standing committee on the food chain and animal health said it backed the ban. It will cover parrots, caged birds, pigeons and birds of prey, more than 230,000 of which have been imported into the EU in the past three months alone.
EU measures have already been taken to ban imports of live birds from Turkey, Romania, the Greek island of Chios and Russia following suspected or confirmed cases of the H5N1 strain.
China said it had discovered a new outbreak of the virus among geese in the eastern Anhui province, the second new case in a week, while Vietnam announced it would consider a ban on live poultry in urban areas.
French authorities have ordered poultry to be kept inside in four areas of the country to prevent the arrival of the disease.