Created by a Toyota (TM) subsidiary in the mid-1990s to track auto parts, QR codes were designed to deliver more information than the traditional barcode.
In parts of Asia, where the current poultry outbreaks began in mid-2003, experience has demonstrated the difficulty of eliminating the virus once it has become widely present in birds.
The current H5N1 panzootic in birds, which began in mid-2003 in parts of South-East Asia, has been accompanied by a few anecdotal reports of H5N1 infection in domestic cats.