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By Krittivas Mukherjee

MUMBAI, Jan 15 (Reuters) - The Indian government confirmed on Tuesday that the latest outbreak of bird flu in poultry in the country's east was of the virulent H5N1 strain.

"The strain is deadly enough to kill the birds," federal Health Secretary Naresh Dayal told Reuters by phone from New Delhi, confirming the presence of the H5N1 virus in the latest outbreak.

"Our teams are already there. Now people will be monitored for flu-like symptoms."

It is the fourth outbreak of the strain in Indian poultry since 2006.

More than 35,000 chickens and other poultry have died in and around Margram village in West Bengal state's Birbhum district over the last couple of weeks, officials have said.

A second outbreak has been detected in the district of South Dinajpur, also in West Bengal but not neighbouring the other outbreak, said Anisur Rahaman, state minister for animal resources.

"The outbreak is of the deadly H5N1 strain and it has been confirmed to us in a central government notification today," Rahaman told Reuters.

West Bengal borders Bangladesh which is fighting to contain bird flu in almost a third of its 64 districts. It has killed more than 300,000 chickens in Bangladesh since last year.

A Reuters photographer in Margram saw shirtless villagers carrying dead chickens with bare hands to a government health centre to claim compensation.

Most were unaware of the risks from bird flu and many children were seen smiling and playing with dead poultry. Even health workers were seen burying dead birds without any protective gear, covering their face only with handkerchiefs.

BORDER STRETCH SEALED

Dead chickens and even a few crows and owls were strewn across the landscape, according to health officials and television news pictures.

Officials said culling of about 400,000 chickens within 3 km (2 miles) of the affected areas would begin on Wednesday.

"We will quarantine anyone we find with flu-like symptoms," Dayal said, adding that the government had adequate stock of the drug Tamiflu.

In previous outbreaks, the virus killed birds in the western state of Maharashtra on two occasions and broke out again in Manipur state in the northeast last August.

Although the strain can infect and kill humans, India has not reported any human cases so far. The disease has killed more than 200 people worldwide since 2003.

About 300 health workers in protective gowns and masks are going door to door to check villagers for fever and other symptoms.

"Don't panic. We had enough time and have taken all measures to contain the spread of the virus," Rahaman said, adding that one stretch of the border with Bangladesh had been sealed off.

For now, humans usually contract the virus only after close contact with infected birds, with the virus killing nearly two-thirds of the people it infects.

But experts worry it may mutate into a form easily transmitted from person to person, leading to a pandemic.

Around a fifth of humanity could fall ill should there be another flu pandemic, according to estimates cited by the World Health Organisation, with catastrophic effects on the global economy. (Additional reporting by Bappa Majumdar in KOLKATA and Parth Sanyal in MARGRAM; Editing by Y.P. Rajesh)

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