Feb 4, 2008, 12:33 GMT
Islamabad - Pakistani authorities on Monday confirmed the presence of bird flu virus at a poultry farm in the southern port city of Karachi, the second detection in four days, an official said.
The fresh outbreak took place at a poultry farm run by the paramilitary forces Rangers in Guddap, the district where the authorities culled thousands of birds on Friday after the detection of H5N1 virus.
'We had sent blood samples to Islamabad a few days ago, and today we received the laboratory test report that is positive,' said Rangers' spokesman Major Asad Ali. Following the confirmation the authorities killed around 4000 birds.
Surveillance at hundreds of other farms that supply poultry products to the city's 15 million people has been tightened and samples from other farms in the area were also taken for tests.
'We have enhanced bio-security measures and workers are being directed to use protective clothing during work at poultry farms,' said a senior official at Poultry Research Institute in Karachi.
Pakistani poultry farms have seen since 2006 dozens of outbreaks of H5N1, the strain of avian influenza that can be deadly in humans.
No human infections were reported in Karachi but three workers from the first farm were being kept in isolation at a local hospital.
The country confirmed its first human case in 2007, but the World Health Organization (WHO) ruled out human-to-human transmission after retests of the blood samples at its laboratory in Geneva.
Bird flu has killed at least 210 people worldwide since 2003.
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