North Korea Sunday confirmed a bird flu outbreak at two chicken farms in the capital Pyongyang and said the farms slaughtered and buried hundreds of thousands of chickens infected by the disease.

But no one is reported to have been infected among breeders on the farms, the North´s official KCNA news agency said.

"Bird flu has recently broken out at a few chicken farms including the Hadang chicken farm," it said, quoting members of the communist state´s emergency veterinary committee as saying.

"Hundreds of thousands of infected chickens have been burned before their burial at the relevant chicken farms."

The committee has been working to prevent the spread of the disease to other poultry farms, and officials of the agricultural and public health ministries have been mobilising a campaign to prevent its spread, it added.

The report comes more than a week after South Korean media said bird flu had broken out in the North Korean capital last month.

But it remained unclear if the strain of virus involved was H5N1, which has been known to jump from birds to humans.

That virus has killed 34 Vietnamese, 12 Thais and one Cambodian since it swept across large parts of Asia in late 2003.

South Korea confirmed 19 cases of the H5N1 strain at poultry farms between December 2003 and March 2004, resulting in a mass cull of poultry.

No infection in humans have been reported in South Korea, but the outbreak halted the country´s modest poultry exports to Japan, Hong Kong and China.

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BANGKOK (Reuters) - A top United Nations bird flu expert has flown to North Korea to help assess and contain outbreaks of the disease among poultry in the secretive state, the Food and Agriculture Organization said on Wednesday. Hans Wagner, a senior FAO official based in Bangkok who has played a prominent role in Asia´s battle against the deadly H5N1 virus, flew to Pyongyang on Tuesday, a day after North Korea told the agency of outbreaks without saying which strain caused them.

He will be joined soon by two FAO consultants from China and Australia who are part of a regional network set up to fight the H5N1 strain which has killed 49 people in Asia since late 2003 ?16 since the virus erupted anew in December.

"They will look at the strategies being set up by the government and also bring some supplies," FAO spokesman Diderik de Vleeschauwer told Reuters.

North Korea said on Sunday it had culled hundreds of thousands of birds after avian influenza hit two farms in Pyongyang, but did not say whether the bird flu virus was the H5N1 strain which can jump from birds to humans.

The FAO has sent avian flu diagnostic kits to North Korea, where the agency already has a project to upgrade veterinary laboratories, provide equipment and create a network for sharing information on the disease.

Poultry production was one of few growing sectors in North Korea, where many people were short of food and the supply of animal protein was very limited, the FAO said.

North Korean farms produced 25.5 million birds in 2004, about two times more than in 1997.

South Korea, which has stepped up quarantine measures at border points and at poultry farms near the border, believes the outbreaks in North Korea are extensive.

De Vleeschauwer said it was too early for the FAO team to give its assessment, but he said the North Koreans were being "open and transparent."

"They are willing to work with FAO and they realize this is a serious situation," he said.