Mexican Health Minister Julio Frenk said Friday that his country had controlled the outbreak of bird flu in Chiapas state on the Guatemala border, adding there was no risk for human health.

Speaking at a Mexico City press conference, Frenk said that Mexico had been maintaining vigilance for years, making sure that bird flu was kept under control.

This vigilance helped the early detection of outbreak, spotted 15 days ago that has hit 300 birds. There was little risk that the human population could be infected, unlike the virus present in Europe and Asia, he said.

The Chiapas strain is H5N2, different from the deadly H5N1, detected in Europe and Asia. Health authorities in Chiapas had established a quarantine, culled the 300 infected birds, disinfected contaminated areas and compensated affected farmers, Frenk said.

Frenk said that there was not risk to people eating Mexican eggs or chicken, and repeated that Latin America was free of bird flu in humans.

In Guatemela on Friday, the agriculture authorities said they had increased epidemiological vigilance at the frontier to prevent any possible outbreak.

Elsewhere on Friday, a British laboratory confirmed that two Turkish teenagers died of the H5N1 flu, the first two deaths outside of Asia.

More than 70 people have died from H5N1 since 2003, and nearly 70 more have been infected, but survived. The bulk of those affected worked closely with birds. Vietnam, with more than 40 cases, is the country worst affected.

Source: Xinhua