A highly contagious bird flu resurfaced in South Korea yesterday with thousands of chickens confirmed dead of the disease at a farm south of Seoul after an 11-day lull in new outbreaks.

　　The news is the latest in a series of outbreaks throughout Asia as Vietnamese officials said yesterday that a raging bird flu sickened more than a million chickens in the country. The World Health Organization worked with the government to determine whether the virus was linked to 12 human deaths in Hanoi.

　　Elsewhere in the region, thousands of chickens have also died of the disease in Japan, while Thailand denied trying to cover up an outbreak of bird flu in its central provinces. Hong Kong and Cambodia have banned poultry imports from countries affected by the outbreak.

　　In S. Korea, the latest infections were found in Yangsan, some 300 kilometers south of the capital, the Agriculture and Forestry Ministry said in a new release. Thousands of the farm's 18,000 chickens have died of the disease, and the rest have been culled, it said.

　　The ministry faulted the farm owner's loose quarantine measures, saying: "Farmers shouldn't let their guard down and should maintain stringent measures against sporadic outbreaks."

　　Authorities have culled more than 1.8 million chickens, ducks and other poultry within 3 kilometers of all affected farms in an effort to contain the disease.

　　To help poultry farmers amid dropping sales, the government plans to buy nearly 7 million chickens and ducks.

　　Experts say the bird flu in South Korea is caused by the H5N1 virus.

　　Virus samples had been sent to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for definitive testing to see whether it is the H5N1-97 strain that crossed to humans in Hong Kong.

　　Most strains of H5N1 don't cross from birds to humans.

　　In Hanoi, WHO country representative Pascale Brudon said test was being conducted to determine whether the virus that's infecting the poultry in Vietnam has jumped to humans.

　　Fourteen people have had suspicious illnesses - with 12 of them dying and two in stable condition. Doctors detected avian flu in at least three victims, Brudon said. The others suffered some type of still-undetermined respiratory illness.

　　"We had 14 people sick with something that looks quite the same, but it's quite difficult for us to be sure," she said. Brudon said the latest death occurred on Sunday in Hanoi. All but one victim were children.

　　Meanwhile, the disease has continued to spread among poultry, and farmers have been ordered to destroy all sick animals.

　　Some 711,000 chickens have fallen ill in Long An Province, with 443,000 others in Tien Giang Province and 81,000 in Ha Tay Province, a Vietnamese official said.

　　In Japan, officials said 6,000 chickens had died from the bird flu and thousands of others would be slaughtered.

　　In Thailand, some farmers alleged that the government was trying to hide a bird flu outbreak, which they claim has killed thousands of chickens at hundreds of farms.