The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has been detected in chickens in another Thai province, as the country struggles to contain the disease one day after the latest human case was diagnosed.

The latest outbreak in Supanburi, just northwest of Bangkok, brings to six the number of provinces with confirmed cases in birds. Others are in Chachoengsao, Kalasin, Kampheang Phet, Kanchanaburi, and Nonthaburi, she said.

A total of 21 of Thailand's 76 provinces are under surveillance for bird flu, she added.

Meanwhile, a fresh outbreak of H5N1 has been confirmed in a village in the Urals, a Russian agriculture ministry veterinarian said yesterday.

"There was a laboratory confirmation of H5N1 in the village of Shatrovo in Chelyabinsk region" on Monday and a total 13 birds died of the virus, said Nikolai Vlasov.

A total 156 birds in the village were killed as a sanitary measure between Monday and yesterday, Vlasov added.

Laboratory test results are awaited later this week from two other suspected outbreaks in Altai province in Siberia, Vlasov said.

Another village in Chelyabinsk region was affected by an outbreak in August as the virus spread west through Russia from Asia.

Cases of the H5N1 have so far been confirmed in eight Russian provinces and hundreds of thousands of birds have been killed.

(China Daily November 2, 2005)