BUDAPEST, March 20 (Xinhua) -- The European Union (EU) is willing to offer financial help to poultry farmers battling with the effects of bird flu, Hungarian Agriculture Minister Jozsef Graf said Monday.

    The European Commission had earlier asked member states to deal with the hardships poultry farmers had come to face as the bird flu appeared in the region, Graf told the press after a meeting of EU farm ministers in Brussels.

    Hungary will apply for EU approval for the government to grant state-guaranteed and subsidized loans to poultry processors in compensation of products they could not sell, Graf said.

    Hungary registered some 45 cases of wild birds infected with the H5 virus so far, but none among domesticated fowl. In quarantine zones and monitoring zones set up around areas where dead birds had been found, fowl are to be kept indoors and products are banned from sale. Enditem