Asia investors seem to lack flu concern: analyst

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Asian institutional investors seem unconcerned about avian flu, said a Merrill Lynch & Co. strategist on Monday, even after recent concerns that the virus might have been transmitted from human to human in Indonesia.

"I was surprised when I was in Asia a few weeks ago that people there don't talk about bird flu," said Richard Bernstein, the brokerage's chief investment strategist, speaking at the Reuters Investment Outlook Summit in New York.

"I was there for a week, and I didn't get one question on it," he added.

The H5N1 avian flu virus has killed 128 people in 9 countries -- Turkey, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Iraq, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, China and Cambodia. It has infected 225, giving it more than a 50 percent fatality rate, but experts are unsure if some people may have had less serious infections that went undetected.

"It comes up in discussion, but there is not an overwhelming feeling that its a major issue," he said, adding that he was in the region when reports from Indonesia said that avian flu may have been transmitted in a small cluster from human to human.

That news put markets on edge as currencies in Asia fell and shares in poultry industry companies like Tyson Foods, Pilgrim's Pride, Gold Kist and Sanderson Farms Inc. declined. There was also concern at the corn and soybean pits of the Chicago Board of Trade, the largest grain exchange.

Bird flu now almost exclusively infects birds, but it can occasionally pass to a person. Experts say the danger is that that the H5N1 virus might evolve into a form that people could easily catch and pass to one another, causing a pandemic that could kill millions of people.