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Military-run Myanmar slaughtered thousands of fowl last week amid fears the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus was spreading in the nation's biggest city, Yangon, state media said on Monday.

Some 6,600 birds were slaughtered in the northern outskirts of Yangon after lab tests detected a possible outbreak of the virus on a farm in Mingaladon Township, the official New Light of Myanmar said.

The birds were killed as a preventive measure, even though lab tests have yet to confirm whether the deadly virus had actually hit the farm, the paper said.

So far, five outbreaks of bird flu have been confirmed around Yangon since February 28. Myanmar has culled about 38,000 birds since then.

No human cases of the disease have been reported, Kyaw Nyunt Sein, deputy director general of the health ministry, told the agency, although some 1,100 people have been tested.

Authorities say that the scale of the problem in Yangon is smaller than the outbreak that hit the central city of Mandalay one year ago. Some 660,000 birds were slaughtered to contain the virus last year.

The World Health Organisation says the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has infected at least 282 people and killed at least 169 of them, mostly in Southeast Asia, since the end of 2003.

The UN's agricultural agency has praised Myanmar's normally secretive government for its response to new outbreaks, and is providing 1.4 million dollars in assistance to help fight the disease.