BEIJING, Jan. 11 (Xinhuanet) -- Several European countries have stepped up measures aimed at preventing the outspread of bird flu after the virus recently killed three children in neighbouring Turkey.

    On Monday, Bulgaria's Agriculture Minister Nihat Kabil said his country was bracing itself for a spread of the deadly H5N1 strain of avian flu, warning that the nearest outbreak was only 500 km away from the Turkish-Bulgarian border and that the situation there was extremely serious.

    To prepare its citizens for possible outbreaks in the country, the Bulgarian authorities had issued special instructions on how to deal with infections, said its Health Ministry, adding that at least 50,000 leaflets would be distributed in rural areas.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday urged his government to take decisive action in order to prevent any new outbreak of avian flu.

    Earlier, Russia's chief state epidemiologist Gennady Onishchenko had informed Putin that Russian doctors had started examining people arriving from Turkey at airports and railway stations.

    About 70 people have been hospitalized with bird flu symptoms in Turkey, and so far four of them have been confirmed by the United Nations' health agency as suffering from the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus.

    Italian Health Minister Francesco Storace said in a newspaper interview that the country might go it alone in bringing in stiffer measures against the epidemic, although the European Unionhas already banned imports of poultry from countries where bird flu has been detected.

    "We can't wait for the European Union, unless it moves fast," he said.

    The World Health Organization says there is no evidence so far of human-to-human transmission of the flu virus, which has killed at least 76 people since late 2003. Enditem