December 29, 2007	Saturday	Zilhaj 18, 1428

DHAKA: Nearly 2,000 chickens have been culled in a village in northern Bangladesh after the H5N1 bird flu virus has detected at a poultry farm, officials said on Friday.

The latest infection was detected in Dinajpur district, 420km from the capital Dhaka, a senior official of Fisheries and Livestock Ministry said.

Bird flu was first detected near the capital in March and has since spread mainly to northern districts and forced authorities to cull about 275,000 chickens and destroy nearly 3 million eggs.

About 4 million Bangladeshis are directly or indirectly associated with poultry farming, but so far there have been no cases of human infection, government and health officials say.

But experts fear the bird flu virus might mutate or combine with the highly contagious seasonal influenza virus and spark a deadly pandemic which could circle the globe and kill millions of people.

—Reuters