ABUJA, Feb. 16 (Xinhuanet) -- Nigeria on Thursday implemented a series of new measures in an effort to fend off the lethal bird flu strain which seems to be spreading, following President Olusegun Obasanjo's pledge to wipe out the virus.

    "The areas where the people are going to be at risk will be vaccinated," said Nasidi Abdussalam, head of the federal government's effort to monitor the spread of the epidemic.

    "All birds found within a five-km radius of poultry farms that are infected would be culled," he said in a television broadcast.

    On Wednesday, President Obasanjo pledged the Nigerian government would "continue to work until the flu is stamped out."

    He ordered his ministers to work round-the-clock "until the flu is contained."

    Meanwhile, Information Minister Frank Nweke said Nigeria has banned poultry within residential quarters in the country's capital Abuja.

    Under a provision in the statute of the federal capital territory, it was "illegal for people to keep stocks of poultry in their homes or backyards," Nweke told reporters after a weekly cabinet meeting.

    He said authorities armed with the edict were "going around to pick up the birds and poultry that are being kept in residential homes."

    The outbreak of bird flu started in January this year on a commercial farm in the country's north but was only confirmed last week.

    Nweke said surveillance throughout Nigeria showed "the outbreakremains localized" while some fear that the virus could reach the thickly populated southern cites like Lagos. There have also been reports of suspected outbreaks in the southern states of Ogun, Oyo and Delta.

    Nigeria is the first country on the African continent to report an outbreak of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus which has claimed at least 91 lives, mostly in Asia, since 1997. Enditem