Mexican Secretary of Agriculture Francisco Mayorga said on Wednesday Mexico has developed plans to prevent bird flu from entering the country and infecting the human and bird populations.

Mexico will control the flow and sale of chicken products, and will tighten controls at ports and airports to prevent products from affected countries from entering Mexico. The Agriculture Department will also map migratory bird routes, Mayorga said.

Mexican health authorities will maintain contact with the World Health Organization (WHO) to coordinate the anti-flu action, he added.

Mayorga will visit Hong Kong and Europe to gather knowledge from forums on fighting the bird flu, agricultural trade, and world food security.

Jose Angel del Valle, director of animal health for Mexico's Agriculture Department, said on Wednesday Mexico has made "great progress" in combating a possible bird flu outbreak in the country and has declared 15 out of all the 32 states bird flu free.

Mexico has not seen any cases of the deadly H5N1 strain, which has killed more than 60 people in southeast Asia since it was first detected in 2003. The new regulations to be enacted next month are established for dealing with bird flu and border controls for preventing its spread, del Valle said.

It is hoped that all states as well as the capital city will be officially flu-free by the end of 2006, he added.

Mexico has around 3,860 poultry farms, which handle an average of 260 million birds every 45 days.

British government officials said on Tuesday 53 quarantined birds had died from H5N1 bird flu variant. Kuwait also reported its first case of the deadly virus in a flamingo last Friday, and Vietnam reported its 42nd human death from bird flu early last week.

Source: Xinhua