BRUSSELS, Jan 9 (Reuters) - Poland has managed to contain its recent outbreaks of bird flu and improved its general animal disease situation, the European Commission said on Wednesday.

Since early December, Polish authorities had reported nine outbreaks of highly pathogenic strains of the disease in poultry and one in a shelter for wild birds, it said in a statement.

The last reported outbreak occurred more than two weeks ago in a laying hen flock in northern Poland, in the same area where the virus was discovered in early December.

"The standing committee (of national EU animal health experts) today reviewed the protection measures in Poland and noted that the disease situation has clearly improved and appears to be under control," the EU executive said.

In response to the outbreaks, Poland applied standard EU-approved protection measures to contain avian influenza in domestic poultry -- including the slaughter of all birds in the affected holdings and tightening movement restrictions.

One of the European Union's leading poultry producers, Poland exported 230,000 tonnes of poultry to EU markets in 2006.

(Reporting by Jeremy Smith, Editing by Peter Blackburn)

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