BANGLADESH authorities said on Sunday they have detected fresh bird flu at a poultry farm four months after the deadly virus was last reported in the country.
Livestock department spokesman Salahuddin Khan said at least 300 birds were destroyed in a farm in the northern Naogaon district last week after the deadly H5N1 strain of avian influenza was detected.

´We have already taken extra surveillance measures across the country,´ he said. ´Farmers have been told to step up bio-security.´

Mr Khan said the outbreak was the first in four months, with the virus becoming dormant at the onset of the summer but now coming back ahead of the cold season.

Officials said the outbreak was a warning for the country´s US$1.5 billion (S$2.2 billion) poultry industry.

Bangladesh was hit by bird flu in February 2007, and the virus made another comeback in January this year.

At the outbreak´s peak, some 50 of the country´s 64 districts were affected, and more than a million birds were slaughtered.

Bangladesh´s poultry industry is one of the world´s largest, producing 220 million chickens and 37 million ducks annually.

Industry officials said the bird flu outbreak at its peak early this year led to closure of 40 per cent of the nation´s poultry farms and left half a million workers jobless.

The country also reported its first confirmed case of human bird flu in May, but the government said the 16-month-old baby who contracted the virus had recovered.