BUCHAREST, June 2 (Xinhua) -- Romania's efforts against bird flu is facing a harsh situation as the number of infected sites has grown to 123 by Friday, a government spokeswoman said.

    Cullings of poultry and disinfections have been conducted in 120 of all the disease-hit spots, spokeswoman Oana Marinescu said,adding that nearly 1 million poultry had been executed since May.

    Bird flu has inflicted up to 70 million euros (89.6 million U.S. dollars) in loss to Romania's poultry industry since the first outbreak in October, with 20 million euros (25.6 million dollars) in loss occurring in May alone, according to a poultry industry guild.

    Also on Friday, the European Union announced an extension of import ban on Romanian poultry product due to the spread of the H5N1 strain of bird flu.

    The Romanian government has shut down one poultry farm and suspended operations of five more as a result of their poor security measures, Marinescu said. Enditem