Urban management officials in Beijing's Dongcheng District send stray pigeons they caught in a church square to a homing pigeons association. The pigeons will be released when the city is declared to be safe from bird flu. -Xinhua

The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has spread to two counties in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, the Ministry of Agriculture said yesterday.

The ministry dispatched experts to the outbreak sites in northwest China to help local governments prevent the further spread of the disease.

More than 320,000 birds were slaughtered within a 3-kilometer radius of the trouble sites and poultry markets within 10 kilometers were shut down.

An investigation began last Wednesday, when farmers in Zepu County in southern Xinjiang reported that 1,347 birds had died. On the same day, a veterinary department found dead fowl at family farms in Urumqi County about 1,500 kilometers to the northeast, the ministry said.

Samples from the dead birds were sent to China's National Avian Flu Reference Laboratory, which confirmed on Sunday that the fowl had died from the H5N1 strain of bird flu.

Even with the most-recent cases, Jia Youling, state chief veterinary officer, said yesterday that all China's outbreak sites had been "basically" brought under control.

Bird flu has also been reported in Anhui, Liaoning, Hunan and Hubei provinces and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Answering questions via an Internet Website, Jia warned that additional cases could occur in the future.

Jia said China still faces problems in bird flu prevention and control, especially at the grassroots level where poultry is often bred in the back yard.

He noted that this year's bird flu outbreaks were caused mainly by migrant birds that fly over the country on three transit major routes.

Jia said China would "actively" take part in the international effort to fight the spread of the disease.

"Bird flu is a global issue," he said, "so it is necessary to tackle it through international cooperation."

Jia said the Ministry of Agriculture has established a good cooperative mechanism with the World Health Organization, the World Organization for Animal Health, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN and other international organizations.

In addition, China has offered aid to neighboring countries that have been affected by the disease. Meanwhile, Jia said China is trying to vaccinate all poultry nationwide.