A teenage girl from the Kelantan village where a lethal strain of bird flu has broken out has been hospitalised with cold symptoms but is not believed to have caught the disease, an official said today.

The director of the Health Ministry's disease control division, Ramlee Rahmat, said the 16-year-old girl had complained of a sore throat and fever for the past two weeks but the fever had now abated.

"It's unlikely to be avian flu as she didn't have contact with the chickens. We are just doing what we have to do, to be on the safe side," he told AFP .

"Our health officers will remain in the village for at least three weeks to monitor the situation."

The government announced yesterday that the H5N1 strain of avian influenza had been discovered in chickens in the village of Baru Pasir Pekan in northern Kelantan state, which borders Thailand, where eight people have died of bird flu this year.

The same illness has killed 19 people in Vietnam.

Kelantan hospitals on alert

Health Minister Chua Soi Lek was quoted by the official Bernama news agency as saying all hospitals and clinics in Kelantan were on alert for bird flu but so far no cases of infection in humans had been detected.

He added that 1,372 members of 297 families in the village and the surrounding had been examined and 16 were found to have coughs and flu but no fever.

Agriculture Minister Muhyiddin Yassin said during a visit to the village that 80 veterinary officers were carrying out culling operations and that a quarantine area of 10 kilometres would be imposed for 21 days.

The outbreak has led to several countries, including Singapore, Japan and Hong Kong banning the import of Malaysian poultry, leaving producers facing big losses.

Singapore along imported 130,000 live chickens, 20,000 ducks and millions of eggs a day from Malaysia.