MOSCOW, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- Veterinary authorities have confirmed the presence of the H5N1 bird flu strain in poultry in three suburban Moscow districts and are conducting more tests to determine the cause of poultry deaths in other areas around the capital, officials said on Tuesday.

    A total of 190 birds have died in areas outside Moscow since Feb. 10 and the presence of the H5N1 strain has been confirmed in birds in the Domodedovo, Podolsk and Odintsovo districts, emergency officials were quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying.

    An additional 75 birds died in the town of Ramenskoye east of Moscow on Tuesday, news reports said.

    Moscow's Sadovod market has been closed after poultry that died of bird flu was found to have been sold at the market. Authorities culled 1,924 birds at the market in an attempt to stem the spread of the virus, the Interfax news agency reported.

    "The source of infection at Moscow's bird market has been exposed and eliminated," Nikolai Vlasov, a senior official at the animal and plant health watchdog, Rosselkhoznadzor, was quoted by Itar-Tass as saying.

    "If no new outbreaks follow over a four-day period after that, the bird flu problem in the Moscow region will be regarded as solved," he said.

    Rosselkhoznadzor and other agencies are investigating how the infected birds were brought to the market, which is located within Moscow's city limits.

    Russia's most recent bird flu outbreak occurred in mid-January in the southern region of Krasnodar. No human cases of bird flu have been reported in the country.

    The bird flu virus has killed 167 people worldwide since it reemerged in Asia in 2003, according to the World Health Organization.