BUCHAREST: New cases of bird flu have been detected in a Romanian village outside the Danube delta where the deadly H5N1 strain was first discovered in October, officials said late on Saturday.

The first bird flu case outside the delta occurred on November 26 in the village of Scarlatesti, about 110 kilometres from the delta, and samples were sent to a British laboratory to determine whether it was the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain.

An official from Braila county, in southeast Romania, said domestic fowl had tested positive for the H5 strain of bird flu on Saturday in the village of Ciocile, near Scarlatesti and close to two other villages where other outbreaks were detected over the past week.

"Tonight, it (the virus) was confirmed in the Ciocile village," Aurica Avram, deputy head of the Braila county, told private television station Realitatea TV.

"We immediately quarantined the village and the operation of culling the birds started tonight and will continue tomorrow morning."

Realitatea TV said eight domestic birds were found carrying the virus. Officials were not immediately available to give further details.

In October, the Balkan state became the first country in mainland Europe to detect the deadly H5N1 virus in poultry in two villages in the Danube delta, Europe's largest wetlands near the Black Sea.

Indonesia confirms eighth death

Indonesia had its eighth human death due to bird flu confirmed by a Hong Kong laboratory affiliated with the World Health Organization, a senior Health Ministry official said on Saturday.

Hariadi Wibisono said the results on the 25-year-old woman, who died earlier this week, made her Indonesia's eighth confirmed death from the H5N1 strain of bird flu.

That would raise the number of deaths from H5N1 avian influenza to 69, out of 133 people known to have been infected.

"We got the result this morning. She was positive," said Wibisono, who heads a department charged with eradicating animal-borne diseases.

Officials said previously the woman had contact with dead chickens before being admitted to a Jakarta hospital. Most human bird flu cases in Asia have been blamed on direct or indirect contact with infected chickens.

Source: China Daily