BEIJING, Oct.9 (Xinhuanet) -- The World Health Organization (WHO) insists that a strain of bird flu that has killed millions of birds in Indonesia is potentially deadly to humans, contrary to claims by Indonesian officials.

    The Indonesian agriculture ministry´s director for animal health, Tri Satya Naipospos, said this week that preliminary test results from a Hong Kong center with which the WHO collaborates showed the H5N1 bird flu strain found in Indonesia was of a genotype that does not infect humans.

    But WHO expert Steven Bjorge says all the bird flu outbreaks in Asia, which have killed at least 30 people in Vietnam and Thailand this year, are of the same Z genotype. The virus is highly pathogenic to birds and can also transmit to humans.

    Thousands of poultry died in a bird flu outbreak in Indonesia early this year. In July, the country launched a major vaccination program to eradicate the virus, which was still lingering in some districts.