Rome/Hanoi, Feb. 5 (Reuters): Three UN agencies admonished Asian countries infected with bird flu today for being too slow in sounding the alarm and warned that the epidemic, which has now killed 16 people, was still not under control.

The virus has ravaged poultry flocks in 10 countries and spread in China, home to the world’s biggest poultry population. Authorities there said they faced a tough fight to defeat the disease and state television reported that the virus may now have spread to 13 of the country’s 31 provinces.

South Korea reported its 19th outbreak, and Vietnam’s Hospital for Tropical Diseases said tests showed that a 16-year-old girl from southern Soc Trang province had become the country’s 11th bird flu victim. Thailand, which has reported five deaths, said it had two more suspected cases, a two-year-old boy and a 67-year-old man. It now has 19 suspected cases of infection by a virus believed to be spread by migrating birds.

Health experts say the human victims have caught the flu from sick chickens and the virus is not being passed between people, but there are fears the bird flu virus could combine with a human flu virus and mutate into a new infectious disease.

World health bodies said in a joint statement after a meeting in Rome the chance the virus could spread to other countries,“including those in distant regions, is likely to remain high” unless the right methods were used to stamp it out.

The virus was not under control, said the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the world animal health body, OIE.

“Without the implementation of appropriate methods of disease control the risk of epidemic spread to further countries, including those in distant regions, is likely to remain high,” it said.