A veterinarian hospitalised three days ago with suspected bird flu has been cleared of the disease, health officials said today amid intensified efforts to contain a new outbreak.

The woman, who developed diarrhoea and fever while working in the affected village in Kelantan, was suffering from a gastric problem, health ministry disease control director Ramlee Rahmat told AFP .

A 10-year-old boy admitted to hospital at the same time remains under observation pending test results although his cough and fever had subsided, Ramlee said.

The new outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, which has killed 27 people across Asia this year, was found in Belian village near Pasir Pekan where the first outbreak occurred last month.

Health authorities have so far screened 2,500 people within a one kilometre radius of the farm where the outbreak had killed 30 chickens and quail, Ramlee added.

The World Health Organisation fears that H5N1 could mutate into a highly contagious form that triggers the next global human flu pandemic.

House-to-house check

Veterinary services department director-general Hawari Hussein said that test results to confirm the new outbreak was H5N1 were still pending. But as a precaution, authorities were treating it as the same strain that killed eight people in Thailand and 19 in Vietnam this year.

The culling of 1,200 birds, chickens and ducks within a one kilometre radius of Belian is expected to be completed later today, and officials are conducting house-to-house checks on residents in the area, he said.

"The situation is under control," he added.

Singapore, which previously imported some 130,000 live chickens, 20,000 ducks and millions of eggs a day, has announced it was extending the ban on all Malaysian poultry and eggs.

However it said Tuesday it may allow selective lifting of its ban if Malaysia implements measures to contain the outbreak.

Malaysia's Federation of Lifestock Farmers Associations said after the first outbreak that the poultry industry was losing RM10 million daily following import bans by Singapore and other countries.