Two Thai official workers collect dead birds during a search at a bird park (AFP)

BANGKOK, February 13 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Asia's bird flu epidemic is still not contained despite a cull of more than 80 million chickens, and affected nations must remain vigilant, the United Nations said Friday, February 13.

This came as China Friday reported seven new confirmed bird flu outbreaks and Taiwan reported two new outbreaks and ordered the culling of birds.

"The spread of the avian influenza virus in several Asian countries is still not under control... Cambodia, China, Indonesia and Laos continue to report new outbreaks in poultry," the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).

It said in a statement that cooperation with regional nations hit by the deadly virus had "significantly improved" but that the response to the crisis in some poorer countries had been slow.

The FAO's warning came as Taiwan reported two new outbreaks of bird flu, both of the less dangerous H5N2 form. The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has left 19 people dead in Asia.

In China, state media said Friday that among the confirmed outbreaks was one at the Shenzhen Wildlife Zoo in southern China, where a black swan had mysteriously died.

The new report brings the total in China to 30 confirmed outbreaks and 17 suspected ones.

The U.N.'s World Health Organization (WHO) has criticized Asian nations for putting economic concerns before public health, drawing denials Friday from Vietnam which insisted that protecting its citizens was its top priority.

"In the efforts against the bird flu epidemic, Vietnam always considers the protection of the health of its people and community as the top concern," Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung said in a statement.

Several countries including Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam, have been criticized for attempting to cover up outbreaks in a bid to protect their agricultural sectors and tourism industries.

Thailand has also rejected the WHO's criticism, saying that no other nation had done more to prevent human casualties.

In an apparent attempt to mollify indignant Asian governments, the FAO said Friday that they had become more open in their dealing with the U.N. agency.

A woman feeds vegetables to ducks at a wholesale poultry market in China (AFP)

"Countries realize that cooperation and transparency are absolutely essential for the fight against bird flu," it said.

But it said that the slow response to the emergency in poorer nations was due to a lack of resources such as veterinary staff, diagnostic tools and transport.

"While China, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam have set up information and response structures, the situation remains very difficult in some of the affected countries," it said.

"In addition, the urgently required administrative and political structures to run an effective emergency campaign are often not yet in place," it said, adding that donor funds and emergency assistance should be better targeted.

Hong Kong, the scene of a deadly 1997 outbreak of bird flu, said Friday it would cull its entire stock of 2.7 million chickens, ducks and pigeons if even one case of the virus was found among bird or humans.

The territory's cull of two million chickens to end the disease's first recorded outbreak among humans, which left six people dead, has been praised by the WHO as a model response.

European Union Health Ministers met in Brussels Thursday to coordinate their response to the epidemic, including plans to stockpile medicines if the virus mutates into a form that could spread among humans and cause a global pandemic.

"We are convinced that an exchange of information is necessary to act in a coordinated manner," French minister Jean-Francois Mattei said.

EU Health Commissioner David Byrne said member states were capable of diagnosing suspected cases within just five to seven hours.

The FAO said veterinarians from more than 20 countries will meet in Bangkok February 26-28 to discuss the economic impact of bird flu, strategies to control the disease, and how to rebuild shattered poultry industries.

The agency said that 80 million chickens in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia and Pakistan had now been slaughtered in a bid to curb the spread of bird flu.

It did not include more than 1.2 million chickens, ducks and geese culled in China, where the H5N1 virus has been reported in 14 of the country's 31 provincial-level regions.

H5N1 has emerged in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam. Pakistan along with Taiwan has announced an outbreak of the weaker strain, as has the United States where bird flu has been found in the state of Delaware.

Thailand Friday announced two more cases of bird flu, but said both patients have already recovered and been discharged from hospital.

Eight confirmed cases of the disease including five fatalities have now been reported in Thailand, in addition to 14 deaths in the worst-hit nation, Vietnam.