LAGOS, Feb. 8 (Xinhuanet) -- Nigeria has accounted for the first outbreak of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in Africa, with the death of about 40,000 chickens in a northern farm since January this year, officials said on Wednesday.

    Nigeria reported the disease, which occurred at a commercial farm with about 46,000 chickens, ostriches and geese at Jaji village in the northern state of Kaduna, to the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) earlier in the day, the Paris-based OIE said in a statement.

    A "laboratory for Avian Influenza in Padova (Italy) has characterized the isolate as a highly pathogenic H5N1 ... Investigations are being carried out in order to define the degree of genetic homology with the currently known H5N1 strains," it said.

    Junaidu Maina, director of Department of Livestock and Pest Control Services in the Agriculture Ministry, said that the outbreak erupted on January 10 and were confirmed by the Italian laboratory on Tuesday.

    "We have applied all bio-sanitary measures and all the birds will be stamped out," Maina told Xinhua from the capital Abuja.

    Highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu virus has never been found before in Nigeria and other African countries.

    The African Union had in a report earlier this year identified Africa as the least prepared continent in the event of epidemic, adding it could cause severe economic hardships at rural level.

    "Apart from being transmissible to humans, the disease poses a serious threat to food and security and the livelihoods of the rural communities in the continent," warned the report issued at the sixth African Union summit in Khartoum, Sudan in January.

    Nigerian Agriculture Minister Malam Adamu Bello told reporters after Wednesday's cabinet meeting in Abuja that the outbreak had been reported to President Olusegun Obasanjo, who had given a directive to quarantine the affected farm and all others within its vicinity.

    "No single bird is there now," Bello said, adding that the farm would be sprayed with the required chemicals and left fallow for aperiod to be determined by experts before it would be reopened.

    He explained that initially it was thought that the birds had cholera, but later it was thought to be avian flu and samples weretaken. "We started looking at this farm since January 16, when a report of high mortality rate of the birds was made."

    Bello said that traces of the disease had been found in some farms in neighboring Kano and Plateau states and that it was possible that the disease was brought into the country through birds from Asia, North America and Europe that have migrated into its wetlands in winter.

    The government, according to him, would pay compensation of 250naira (1.92 U.S. dollars) on each chick killed from an emergency allocation of between 1.5 billion naira (11.5 million dollars) and1.7 billion naira (13 million dollars).

    The World Organization for Animal Health said it and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization would take immediate action and coordinate a common response to this event.

    "A team of experts will be sent to the affected area in order to assess the situation and provide technical advice to the national authorities," it added.

    Outbreaks of highly pathogenic H5N1 were first reported in poultry at farms and wet markets in Hong Kong and have since spread to other Asian regions and a few parts of Europe.

    Of all influenza viruses that circulate in birds, the H5N1 virus is of greatest present concern for human health. According to the World Health Organization, a total of 165 human cases of the virus have been reported around the world, and at least 88 of them have died. Enditem