The Ministry of Agriculture Tuesday ordered farming and veterinary bureaus in six provinces to strengthen their bird flu prevention and control work in the wake of two flu outbreaks in South Korea.

"Due to geographical closeness and the fact that South Korea and eastern China both stand along the bird migration route between East Asia and Australia, the outbreak in South Korea has posed a severe threat to China's bird flu control situation," said an urgent notice issued yesterday by the ministry.

According to the notice, farming and veterinary bureaus in Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Shandong, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces should increase the size and frequency of their daily inspections in migrant bird habitats and border areas in order to prevent the disease from spreading from South Korea.

Specifically, farming and veterinary bureaus, customs, and industrial and commercial administrations in Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning are required to work together to prevent any import of poultry products from South Korea.

Smuggling of poultry products should also be curbed, said the notice.

Also, a full-time inspection system is required for border areas in those provinces and inspection teams are required to collect and send sick bird samples to the country's bird flu laboratory in a timely fashion, said the notice.

All inspection teams are required to report disease cases and epidemics in a timely fashion, and ensure the storage of bird flu drugs, according to the notice.

Agriculture officials in South Korea yesterday confirmed that the second case of highly pathogenic bird flu at a poultry farm was the H5N1 strain, after confirming on Saturday it had its first outbreak of the H5N1 strain in three years.

The latest strain killed about 200 chickens at a farm, 3 kilometres from where the first outbreak of the H5N1 strain in Iksan, about 250 kilometres south of Seoul.

The first outbreak has already prompted quarantine officials to kill hundreds of thousands of poultry in addition to dogs and pigs.

Prior to yesterday's urgent notice from the Ministry of Agriculture, the State Council has recently staged a renewed effort to combat bird flu.

In a document posted on www.gov.cn, the State Council asks for a restriction on the number of live poultry markets, and for them to be gradually moved away from urban areas in large and medium-size cities.

The newly-issued document also asks local governments to ban construction of new live poultry markets in densely-populated urban areas.

The State Council also demanded veterinary inspection agencies at various levels intensify their monitoring and quarantine of poultry products to insure no uncertified poultry products enter the market.

About 2.9 million poultry birds were culled in 10 outbreaks of bird flu in seven provinces on the Chinese mainland this year, according to statistics revealed by the Ministry of Agriculture earlier this month.

Thirteen people have been infected with bird flu this year, compared with seven last year.