Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Agriculture confirmed Friday the first outbreak of H5N1 bird flu virus among birds in the country, the state-run Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.

After the deadly bird flu cases being detected among turkeys, parrots, peacocks and ostriches in eastern part of the country, a number of birds have been ordered to be culled, said SPA.

In addition, the Saudi government has imposed a quarantine blocking the import of live birds into the country and banning the hunting of migrant birds to avoid further spread of the virus.

No human cases have been reported up to now, according to the report.

Bird flu cases have been detected in Kuwait and Egypt in the Arab region.

On Wednesday, Kuwait detected three more cases of the H5N1 strain of bird flu in birds, raising the total number of the cases to 57 in the Gulf country neighboring Saudi Arabia.

Egypt found the first bird flu case in dead poultry on Feb. 17, 2006, and then the virus spread to 20 of the country's 26 governorates. The populous Arab country reported first human bird flu case on March 18 of 2006.

Of the 26 human cases discovered in Egypt so far, 13 died, 11 recovered while the other two are under treatment.

Source: Xinhua