It is all the bird flu, but nothing else to save hundreds of thousands of guest birds in Bangladesh from falling prey in the hands of hunters.

Hundreds of thousands of guest birds, who come to Bangladesh during the winter to flee freezing cold in their home countries end up in the dishes of their hosts in this South Asian nation with a population of 140 million.

Every year millions such birds of different species come to Bangladesh mainly from Siberia, China, Cambodian and other countries during the fall.

Bangladeshi hunters and poor people, who trade on these guest birds, catch thousands of birds and sell them in cities and towns. Richer people of this impoverished country buy those birds to maketheir dishes delicious.

"But the situation will be different this time. We have orderedthe district administrations to launch a campaign so the people donot catch these migratory birds and sell them," said Abdullah Al Norman, Minister for Fisheries and Livestock.

Noman said his ministry has already ordered the district administrations, where guest birds assemble, not to allow any hunters to catch or sell the birds.

"We have also asked them to motivate people not to buy those birds and eat them. These all steps have been taken to prevent the outbreak of bird flu, the killer virus," Noman said.

Forming a National Task Force to monitor any suspected bird fluoutbreak with experts, the government has also banned import of chicks and poultry products from some European countries includingRussia, Britain, Turkey, Greece, Romania, Kazakhstan, where the disease has already spread.

"Since we don't have any mechanism to protect the local farmers from the devastating impact of bird flu, the government has taken a policy to ban import of poultry from any country where bird flu is detected," Subodh Chandra Dali, a spokesman of the Livestock and Fisheries Ministry said.

Meanwhile, the government has sought help of donor countries and agencies to help it prevent the outbreak of the virus.

Noman Monday told the private NTV that the government has taken measures to procure medicines as a precautionary measures in case of outbreak of the flu. "We have contacted the countries producing the anti-virus medicines to build up a stock."

All the government moves came in the wake of growing fears of bird flu across the world, which transmit to human bodies from birds and poultry birds.

The World Health Organization has said it is greatly concerned that bird flu outbreak that have appeared throughout Asia could eventually jump the species barriers to infect humans and lead to a global flu pandemic.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed more than 60 people in Asia since 2003 and has since spread to poultry in parts of Europe.

Bangladesh, one of the world's most densely populated countries,has about 150,000 poultry firms. Last year the poultry industry had an estimated annual turnover of 750 million US dollars and employed more than 2 million workers, industry sources said.