Experts were meeting in the Tunisian city of Hammamet to discuss how to fight the possible arrival of bird flu in north Africa, organizers said.

Representatives of Algeria, Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia, as well as the Horn of Africa state of Djibouti, were having talks with ornithologists, epidemiologists, agronomists and experts in communication until Friday.

The meeting is organized by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation.

Of the participants only Djibouti has so far had an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, which can be fatal to humans, but Niger to the south of Algeria has also been affected.

Tunisian and Morocco for their part are located on principal migration routes of wild birds, thought to be a chief vector of the disease which has killed more than 120 people, mainly in Asia.