BUDAPEST, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of goslings showing symptoms of bird flu were culled at a farm in southeastern Hungary over the weekend, the Hungarian news agency MTI reported on Monday.

    Some birds in the four-week-old stock showed neural symptoms on Friday, suggesting that they might have been infected by the bird flu virus, the report quoted officials of the Agriculture Ministry as saying.

    A forensic veterinary examination raised the suspicion of a bacterial infection. Although the bird flu virus could not be detected by the examination, all the 9,400 goslings kept on the farm near Derekegyhaz were culled on Saturday. Samples of the bodies have been sent to Budapest for further tests.

    The European Union (EU)'s central laboratory in Britain has meanwhile confirmed the presence of the deadly H5N1 strain in birds culled in Hungary last week, the European Commission's Health and Consumer Protection spokesperson Philip Tod said on Monday.

    This is the first reappearance of the H5N1 virus strain in the EU since last summer, he said.

    Tod noted that the late winter period is especially dangerous from the perspective of the spread of the bird flu virus, and extra precautions are necessary in all EU countries.