Bird Flu Is Moving West

Russia cordoned off roads and slaughtered hundreds of birds on Monday to contain the advance of a bird flu epidemic toward Western Europe.

The country's top state epidemiologist warned that the bird flu outbreak in Siberia also could spread through key agricultural areas in the south and then on to the Middle East and Mediterranean countries.

"An analysis of bird migration routes has shown that in fall 2005 the H5N1 virus may be spread from Western Siberia to the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea,