Remember the bird flu? It's still there.

With all the focus on the H1N1 pandemic flu, the bird flu has taken a back seat (very far back) but it's still very much there and continues to affect people in Asia and the Middle East.

The big news is still H1N1 - it came out today that a US turkey flock in Virginia has been diagnosed with H1N1 - as well as the fact that the flu pandemic in the US seems to have reached its peak and is beginning to wane.

However, recent reports show that people are still getting the H5N1 bird flu from sick chickens, particularly in Indonesia, Egypt, Vietnam and China. This is the same bird flu crisis that started in Asia in nearly 2004, has yet to be fully controlled and probably never will be.

Egypt was affected later, but still continues to struggle with the bird flu, which probably explains why they culled the country's entire swine herd right after the H1N1 pandemic started this year.

The truth is that H1N1 can't be blamed for pushing the bird flu out of the spotlight - the bird flu lost its sex appeal a long time ago. Last year I attended the cuadrennial World's Poultry Congress in Australia, and while they had many conferences on the bird flu, these were poorly attended. Only folks from the countries still struggling with the problem showed up for these sessions. Even the worldwide poultry industry seems to have lost interest.

But the bird flu is still there, and people are still getting sick and dying from it. It's not going away either, since wild acuatic birds in Asia have it, and keep passing it to domestic fowl. It is a permanent issue now.

Therefore, assuming that its just the problem of a handful of countries is a very good way for everyone else to get into trouble and very quickly.