MOSCOW, Feb 17 (Reuters) - Russia's animal health watchdog will determine by Sunday evening whether the H5N1 strain was responsible for the Moscow region's first bird flu outbreak, a senior veterinary official said on Saturday.

Farm workers had not fallen ill but were taken to hospital as a precautionary measure after bird flu killed poultry in two villages near Moscow, Nikolai Vlasov, head of veterinary surveillance at Russian agency Rosselkhoznadzor, told Reuters.

"We are now carrying out tests to determine the nature of the bird flu virus. We don't yet know what type it is and will find out no earlier than Sunday evening," said Vlasov, whose agency is responsible for Russia's animal and plant health.

Russia's latest bird flu outbreak is its second this year and the first ever recorded close to the capital. The highly pathogenic H5N1 strain killed poultry in three yards in the southern region of Krasnodar last month.

Russian news agencies on Friday quoted chief sanitary expert and head of Russia's consumer rights watchdog, Gennady Onishchenko, as saying H5N1 strain was responsible for the Moscow region poultry deaths.

Vlasov said it was still too early to determine the strain.

He said, however, that poultry which had been in contact with the dead birds had been culled and that strict sanitary measures were in place in the two affected villages -- Pavlovskoye, south of Moscow, and Shikovo, to the west.

"We are taking very strict measures in case this outbreak was caused by the H5N1 virus," Vlasov said.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed 167 people worldwide since 2003, mostly in Asia. Many of the victims had been in direct contact with infected birds.

Health experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that passes easily from human to human, sparking a pandemic that could kill millions.

No human cases have been recorded in Russia. Five people have died from eight cases in neighbouring Azerbaijan.

Russia recorded more than 90 cases of the virus in birds last year, mostly in the North Caucasus region that borders Georgia and Azerbaijan and also in Siberia's Novosibirsk and Omsk regions.

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