Agriculture ministry of Russia on Saturday confirmed a bird flu outbreak in a village in the Far East region of Primorye which was quarantined after scores of chickens died.

A senior official of Russia’s agriculture ministry said, “In two days, 28 out of 42 hens & guinea fowl died on a farm in the village of Vozdvizhenka, 110 kilometres north of Vladivostok”.

A regional laboratory made the discovery after testing samples taken from sick birds & a national laboratory was due to determine if it was the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus. Authorities had killed all other fowl on the farm & vaccinated birds in the village & nearby areas.

Experts fear the virus, which can be spread from birds to humans, could mutate into a form easily transmissible between people & spark a deadly global pandemic.