NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – Experts are developing a bird flu warning system that maps migratory routes to help alert countries at risk of receiving infected species, U.N. officials said Sunday.

China, meanwhile, reported two more bird flu outbreaks despite a nationwide effort to vaccinate its 14 billion farm birds.

Outbreaks of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu have devastated poultry flocks across Asia since 2003 and jumped to humans, killing at least 67 people. Scientists say migrating birds have spread the virus.

A pilot project of the warning system is expected to be operational in six months, while the final plan should be running in two years, said Marco Barbieri of the U.N. Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals.

The system will help experts recommend that farmers move poultry away from key wetlands and offer hygiene advice, said Britain’s Biodiversity Minister Jim Knight.

Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program, said there were “important gaps” in knowledge about migratory routes for some species.

“We need to urgently bridge that gap,” he said. “In doing so, I believe this initiative can make a valuable contribution to the worldwide effort to deal with this threatened pandemic.”

Most people who have contracted bird flu have had contact with sick birds, but international health experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that is easily transmissible between people and spark a global pandemic.

China, which has reported 17 outbreaks in poultry, has confirmed two cases in humans – including one death – and a suspected case in a 12-year-old girl who died.

The country has imposed increasingly strict measures to contain the virus, killing millions of birds, closing live poultry markets and ordering inspections of bird shipments nationwide.

More than 3,600 birds died in outbreaks that started last week in China’s northern region of Inner Mongolia and the central Hubei province, and another 7,000 were destroyed in an effort to contain the virus, the official Xinhua News Agency said.

The report came a day after Chinese President Hu Jintao said he and visiting President Bush agreed to cooperate on flu prevention and treatment efforts.

In Indonesia, local tests showed a 35-year-old man died of bird flu, but the results must still be confirmed by a World Health Organization-sanctioned laboratory in Hong Kong, said I Nyoman Kandun, a senior Health Ministry official.

Seven people have been confirmed to have died of bird flu in Indonesia since July.

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