PESHAWAR, Oct 23: Pakistan, like many other Asian countries facing the threat of bird flu, lacks strategy and resources to respond on an emergency basis if a pandemic is triggered, a World Health Organization official said here on Saturday.

“Pakistan lacks strategy to train its doctors for diagnosis of avian flu as the symptoms of the disease are similar to those of normal influenza,” said WHO emergency medical officer Quaid Saeed.

He said an outbreak of the disease could cause a number of deaths in the country.

Countries like Pakistan, where a strain of the disease was reported in 2004 in poultry farms of Karachi and Mansehra, were at risk, health officials said.

There were chances that mutation in avian flu virus could cause an outbreak or pandemic at different places at the same time, they said.

Those who handled poultry were at the highest risk and a mere ban on import of chicken was not enough as migratory birds could also bring the disease here, said Dr Saeed.

WHO officials said the country had a pandemic response plan but provincial health officials said that there was no such plan.

“No case of bird flu has been reported in the NWFP recently but it can hit anytime and there is no surveillance system to detect the virus,” a health official said.