MUMBAI (Reuters) - The Indian government confirmed onTuesday that the latest outbreak of bird flu in poultry in thecountry's east was of the virulent H5N1 strain.

"The strain is deadly enough to kill the birds," federalHealth Secretary Naresh Dayal told Reuters by phone from NewDelhi, confirming the presence of the H5N1 virus in the latestoutbreak.

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

It is the fourth outbreak of the strain in Indian poultrysince 2006.

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

A second outbreak has been detected in the district ofSouth Dinajpur, also in West Bengal but not neighboring theother outbreak, said Anisur Rahaman, state minister for animalresources.

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

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

A Reuters photographer in Margram saw shirtless villagerscarrying dead chickens with bare hands to a government healthcentre to claim compensation.

Most were unaware of the risks from bird flu and manychildren were seen smiling and playing with dead poultry. Evenhealth workers were seen burying dead birds without anyprotective gear, covering their face only with handkerchiefs.

BORDER STRETCH SEALED

Dead chickens and even a few crows and owls were strewnacross the landscape, according to health officials andtelevision news pictures.

Officials said culling of about 400,000 chickens within 3km (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 ofthe drug Tamiflu.

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

Although the strain can infect and kill humans, India hasnot reported any human cases so far. The disease has killedmore than 200 people worldwide since 2003.

About 300 health workers in protective gowns and masks aregoing door to door to check villagers for fever and othersymptoms.

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

For now, humans usually contract the virus only after closecontact with infected birds, with the virus killing nearlytwo-thirds of the people it infects.

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

Around a fifth of humanity could fall ill should there beanother flu pandemic, according to estimates cited by the WorldHealth Organisation, with catastrophic effects on the globaleconomy.

(Additional reporting by Bappa Majumdar in KOLKATA andParth Sanyal in MARGRAM; Editing by Y.P. Rajesh)