The government of east China's Anhui Province allocated an emergency fund of 200,000 yuan (US$24,000) on Thursday to compensate the farmers whose poultry were killed for bird flu control.

All the affected farmers will receive financial assistance within two days, said officials with the provincial headquarters on disease control.

The local health authority has killed all the 22,000 fowls within a 3-km radius of the affected chicken farm and on average 10 yuan (US$1.2) will be paid for each fowl.

The national bird flu reference laboratory confirmed on Tuesday that the latest death of chickens at a farm in the Juchao district of Chaohu city was caused by the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu virus.

(Xinhua News Agency July 9, 2004)