BANGKOK, Thailand -- Authorities in northern Thailand have detected a new outbreak of bird flu in ducks and slaughtered nearly 3,000 birds in an effort to halt the disease´s spread, an official said Friday.

The Livestock Department of Phitsanulok province received positive test results for the disease Thursday after sending samples from sick ducks in Ban Wang Yai village to a lab a week ago, a livestock official said on condition of anonymity.

Some 2,880 ducks were culled in the area Friday in an attempt to contain the disease.

Avian influenza struck poultry farms across Asia earlier this year and jumped to humans in Vietnam and Thailand - where it re-emerged recently - killing 27 people.

On Wednesday, the first bird flu cases in peninsular Malaysia were discovered in fighting cocks in a remote village near the Thai border.

The disease has been detected in poultry in 22 of Thailand´s 76 provinces, and nearly 300,000 birds have been slaughtered since early July, when the disease re-emerged.

Phitsanulok province is 210 miles north of Bangkok.