Turkey culled about 1 500 chickens and turkeys overnight to prevent the spread of avian flu after reporting its first outbreak of the disease on a farm near the Aegean Sea, NTV private television said yesterday.

The authorities have also imposed a 3 km (2 miles) quarantine zone around the affected farm, where nearly 2,000 turkeys died of the globally feared disease, the station said. It was not clear why the first reports of the outbreak only surfaced on Saturday evening.

The H5N1 avian influenza virus has killed millions of birds across Asia and infected 116 people, killing more than 60 of them. Scientists fear the virus, currently known to pass to humans from birds, could mutate and be passed among humans.

Stray dogs in the area of Kiziksa are being killed as a precaution, officials said. The turkeys in Kiziksa probably contracted the disease from migratory birds heading for a nearby natural park called Bird Paradise.

The European Commission said yesterday it was in close contact with the EU hopefuls and member states. ?We?re looking into it to establish the facts ... the Turkish and Romanian case are two different ones?, a spokesman for the EU Commission said.

The World Health Organisation warned last month that bird flu was moving towards a form that could be passed between humans and the world had no time to waste to prevent a pandemic.

Gareth JONES