Nigeria will kill all 46,000 chickens before Thursday in a northern farm where a highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu virus had been found, a senior agricultural official told Xinhua on Wednesday.

"By tomorrow, all the birds would have been stamped out at a small commercial farm on the Kaduna-Zaria road in (the northern Nigeria state of) Kaduna," said Junaidu Maina, director of Department of Livestock and Pest Control Services in the Agriculture Ministry by telephone.

Maina said the Nigerian government had applied all bio-sanitary measures to contain the outbreak, the first time it occurred in Africa, which started on January 10 this year. Highly pathogenic bird flu has never been reported before in Nigeria.

The World Organization for Animal Health said earlier in a statement that a team of experts will be sent to the affected area in order to assess the situation and provide technical advice to the national authorities.

Source: Xinhua