Bangladesh confirmed Thursday its first case of bird flu, prompting mass culling of poultry at a farm outside the capital Dhaka, officials said.

"The cabinet held a special meeting on Thursday afternoon after the health ministry confirmed that bird flu was detected at a poultry farm at Savar," government spokesman Syed Fahim Munaim said.

The government earlier sent samples from poultry on the farm to the National Institute of Animal Health in Bangkok, which confirmed the presence of the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus.

Bangladesh is home to hundreds of thousands of poultry farms which employ more than a million people.

The head of the country´s interim government, Fakhruddin Ahmed, chaired Thursday´s cabinet meeting, which agreed to measures to prevent the spread of the disease in the South Asian country, home to 144 million people.

"We´ve started culling birds at the infected farm and would now take special measures including restricting movement of birds within a 10-kilometre radius area to contain the disease," the spokesman said.

Other measures include health checks on all workers who may have come into contact with the infected birds, he said.

It is unclear how poultry became infected at the farm in Savar town about 40 kilometres (25 miles) west of Dhaka.

The government released a statement urging residents to remain calm, saying only birds at the one farm had been infected.

The virulent H5N1 virus has killed at least 169 people across the world since late 2003 through contact with infected birds, according to the World Health Organisation.

"The government would like to assure (everyone) that there is no reason for any panic or concern. In fact, poultry birds and eggs can be consumed as usual through normal cooking, according to experts," it said.

A control centre has been opened to oversee the culling and carrying out of the virus containment measures, it said.

Bangladesh had already banned imports of live birds from more than 50 countries including neighbouring India and Myanmar after outbreaks were detected there.

Bangladesh is the world´s most densely populated country, and hundreds of its doctors have been trained by the World Health Programme in the event that humans contracted the virus.

Scientists fear the virus could mutate into a form easily spread among humans, leading to a global pandemic with the potential to kill millions.