Highly respected journal Nature quoting epidemiologist Mark Savey
(http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440):

• "You have a paper Michelin map; you have people who speak the language; you put red circles on outbreaks; and you use a pen and paper to compare them with things like the dates of market openings, and with how outbreaks line up with railways." Such local knowledge is crucial to interpreting data, he says. "If you don't know what the Trans-Siberian Express is like, with people cooped up for days, exchanging chickens and eggs at every stop, you would never guess that it was the Trans-Siberian that mainly spread avian flu across Russia."

Nigeria suspects illegal imports brought bird flu
(www.sabcnews.com/africa/west_africa/0,2172,123064,00.html)

• Nigeria suspects that illegal poultry imports were to blame for introducing deadly bird flu to Africa's most populous country, the information minister said today. The virus known as H5N1 has spread to seven of the country's 36 states and the capital city since it was first detected in northern Nigeria on February 8, but 90% of infected farms bought day-old chicks from one farm in Kano state, Frank Nweke, the minister said.

  He said in a statement: There is a very strong basis to believe that avian flu may have been introduced into Nigeria through illegally imported day-old chicks.

  Further investigations, into the activities of farms where birds have tested positive to the highly pathogenic avian flu, revealed that 90% of them patronised the Sovet Farms Ltd in Kano.