AFP Photo Turkish agriculture ministry employees collect poultry for destruction in Agri, eastern Turkey. A top UN body warned that an outbreak of deadly bird flu sweeping across Turkey could become entrenched and spread into nearby states, as the country's European and eastern neighbors moved into a heightened state of alert.

ANKARA (AFP) - A top UN body warned that an outbreak of deadly bird flu sweeping across Turkey could become entrenched and spread into nearby states, as the country's European and eastern neighbours moved into a heightened state of alert.
 
 The World Health Organisation (WHO) urged global cooperation as two new deaths in China brought the toll from the lethal H5N1 strain up to 78 people worldwide, including two Turks who perished last week, becoming the first human casualties outside East Asia.
 
 And at UN headquarters in New York, the pointman in the battle against the avian flu outbreak called on donors to contribute around 1.5 billion dollars (1.25 billion euros) at a pledging conference in Beijing next week.
 
 "We view this as the beginning," said David Nabarro, the UN coordinator on avian and human influenza.
 
 "I'm not for a minute suggesting that the amounts of money we are talking about ... are all that's going to be needed.
 
 "But they're what's required to help countries put in place their influenza programs and to get much better and effective control," he told reporters.
 
 In Turkey the virus has infected 13 other people and spread from the country's remote east to its western shores with officials culling hundreds of thousands of winged animals.
 
 But the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said the virus may be spreading despite Ankara's attempts to curb it.
 
 "The highly pathogenic avian influenza virus H5N1 could become endemic in Turkey and poses a serious risk to neighbouring countries," FAO senior animal health officer Juan Lubroth said in a statement from the body's Rome headquarters.
 
 "Far more human and animal exposure to the virus will occur if strict containment does not isolate all known and unknown locations where the bird flu virus is currently present," he added.
 
 The organisation warned neighbouring Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iraq, Iran and Syria that they were in the front line in case of a spillover from Turkey.
 
 Faced with the threat of contamination with a virus that knows no boundaries, Georgia said it was disinfecting all of its border posts.
 
 And authorities in the Kurdish-held north of Iraq banned local trading in live chickens and ordering all vehicles coming in from Turkey to have their tires sprayed with disinfectant.
 
 The warning also led several European states -- especially those lying on the route of migratory birds blamed for the spread of the virus -- to introduce heightened measures.
 
 Romania joined Britain and Russia in advising its citizens to stay away from Turkey, but Danzon told the press conference: "There is no danger (in coming) to Turkey."
 
 Epidemiologists from EU member states were to meet on Thursday in Luxembourg to review the spread of the virus.