Tests by scientists in Britain have shown that a heron found dead last week in eastern Romania was carrying the deadly H5N1 virus of bird flu, Romanian Agriculture Minister Gheorghe Flutur said Friday.

"Tests carried out by the laboratory in Weybridge have confirmed the presence of the H5N1 virus" in the bird, Flutur said. The heron was found a week ago in the Vaslui region near Romania's border with Moldova.

Flutur announced last week that the H5N1 virus, which has killed more than 60 people in Asia since late 2003, had been detected in birds in two villages in the Danube delta, in the southeast of the country. Thus Romania became the first country incontinental Europe to have detected the H5N1 strain.

More than 21,000 domestic birds in the two villages were killed and the villages were placed under quarantine. Tourism and fishing activities have also been suspended in the Danube delta.

Friday's announcement marks the first time the H5N1 virus has been reported in the country outside the southeastern Danube deltaregion.

Flutur, however, sought to reassure Romanian citizens, saying that more than 400 other tests carried out on suspect cases from the east of country, including the Vaslui region, have been negative.

But he said protection measures, including a ban on outdoor rearing of farmyard poultry, would be maintained in the regions affected.

Experts fear a pandemic that could kill millions of people across the globe if H5N1 acquires genetic material from a human influenza virus and becomes easily transmittable from humans to humans.

The H5N1 strain has also been detected in Croatia, Russia and Turkey. Romanian experts said the dead heron was probably migrating to the Danube delta from Russia's Siberia region for wintering.

Romanian health authorities on Thursday ordered tests on several chickens found on a train arriving from Russia.

Countries around the world have rushed through measures in recent weeks to try to abate the spread of the virus in birds.

On Tuesday, the European Union agreed to impose a ban on pet bird imports from the rest of the world, following the detection of the H5N1 strain in a dead parrot held in quarantine in Britain.