BANGKOK, March 14 (Xinhuanet) -- Thai Deputy Agriculture Minister Newin Chidchob said Sunday that 27 provinces listed as bird flu monitoring zones or yellow zones could be downgraded as green zones where the virus is believed to have been eliminated, the FM 100.5 radio station reported.

    He said that since officials had detected no more signs of birdflu in the 27 yellow zones for 21 days after all of the fowl in these places had been slaughtered, other provinces in the list of yellow zones were estimated to be declared areas free of bird flu before April 5.

    According to the rule of the Thai government, yellow zones are areas being monitored for more outbreaks after the culling of all fowl in infected areas, after 21-day monitoring period, the yellowzones could be degraded as green zones.

    Newin also said the ministry had met new problems that some farmers purposely claimed their poultry had been infected by the fatal virus and then slaughtered the birds in order to get compensation from the government.

    The Thai government admitted the kingdom was affected by bird flu on Jan. 23 and then declared 43 provinces out of the total 76 provinces of the nation to be bird flu control zones or red zones successively.

    After more than 35 million poultry were slaughtered, the spreadof the fatal virus has been controlled, and in February all of thered zones had been degraded as yellow zones.

    Early last week, Newin predicted that the country could be declared a nation free of bird flu this month, but the schedule has to be delayed as new outbreak was detected in Uttaradit province on March 13.

    According to a survey conducted by the government, a total of 84,583 chicken farmers had been affected by the outbreak, and the Agriculture Ministry had requested a total compensation pay-out of394 million baht (9.85 million US dollars).

    So far 114 million baht (2.85 million dollars) have been approved for 35,549 farmers with 7,500 already receiving money.

    Thailand's poultry industry, the world's fourth largest, has also suffered much from the bird flu outbreak. The European Union,Japan and other major markets have banned Thai chicken products. Enditem ¡¡