US: President George W Bush has outlined a $7.1 billion (nearly €6 billion) plan to protect the US from a possible flu pandemic, saying he wants to stockpile enough vaccine against avian flu for 20 million people.
Mr Bush said the US was likely to face a flu pandemic some time, either caused by bird flu or by some other new strain.
"At this moment, there is no pandemic influenza in the United States or the world," he said, "but if history is our guide, there is reason to be concerned. In the last century, our country and the world have been hit by three influenza pandemics - and viruses from birds contributed to all of them."
The 1918 pandemic killed more than 20 million people, including 500,000 Americans, while thousands of Americans were among the millions killed by flu outbreaks in 1957 and 1968.
Mr Bush said the US must be prepared to detect outbreaks anywhere in the world, stockpile vaccines and anti-viral drugs and be ready to respond if a pandemic reached the US.
It will cost $1.2 billion for the government to buy enough doses of the vaccine against the current strain of bird flu to protect 20 million people and a further $1 billion to stockpile more anti-viral drugs that ease flu symptoms.
Mr Bush wants to spend $2.8 billion to speed the development of vaccines as new strains emerge, a process that now takes months, and he wants to indemnify drug companies that make vaccines against lawsuits.
He said the cornerstone of his strategy was to develop new technologies to produce new vaccines quickly. "If a pandemic strikes, our country must have a surge capacity in place that will allow us to bring a new vaccine online quickly and manufacture enough to immunise every American against the pandemic strain."
In Canada, health authorities have announced that a strain of the potentially lethal H5 avian flu had been found in 33 wild migratory ducks in Quebec. While it will be at least a week before it can be confirmed if the birds are carrying the strain, officials say they are confident they were not.
There are a number of H5 avian flu strains, but it was the H5N1 strain which caused over 60 deaths in southeast Asia and could trigger a pandemic in humans should it mutate in a human who has caught the flu from a bird.
France is to conduct a simulated exercise in Brittany on how to deal with an outbreak over the next two days.
In Britain, the three main supermarket chains say poultry sales are back to normal following a dip last week. Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury all reported sales of chicken were in line with expected levels for the season.