A new outbreak of bird flu has been discovered in northern Thailand's Chiang Mai Province, a Thai government official said Wednesday.

The bird flu was discovered through laboratory tests that confirmed chickens at Chiang Mai University's research farm died from avian influenza, livestock department office official Teera Ananworapanya said.

The laboratory result confirmed two samples from hundreds of chickens died from bird flu.

''We sent two samples last Wednesday and the result came out positive. As soon as we knew the result Monday, we destroyed all the chickens on the farm,'' Teera told Kyodo News.

So far, there have been no other reports of bird flu in the province, Teera added.

More than 1,000 birds at the farm, mostly chickens, but including ducks, geese and ostriches were destroyed Monday after between 200 and 300 chickens started to fall ill May 8, a veterinarian in the livestock department office in Chiang Mai said.

The birds were kept at the farm at Chiang Mai University for agriculture faculty students to conduct for experiments and do research.

The farm also has some pigs and goats, but they were not affected by the bird flu outbreak.

On May 14, Thailand said there had been neither new outbreaks nor recurrences of bird flu in the country's poultry populations since April 21.

The country ended the 21-day intensive clinical surveillance a day earlier.

Bird flu outbreaks were found in the northern provinces of Phetchabun and Uttaradit late last month.

Despite the announcement on May 14, the Thai agriculture and cooperatives minister said it was impossible for Thailand to announce the country was free from bird flu because there are birds in the wild and the virus could be among them.

The announcement could only be taken as regarding epidemic situations.

Nearly 40 million birds have been killed since the first formally discovered outbreaks on Jan. 23.

The government prepared a budget of nearly 2.5 billion baht ($61.2 million) to tackle the bird flu epidemic in Thailand, including compensation to farmers.

Bird flu hit 41 of the country's 76 provinces and killed eight of 12 humans confirmed to have contracted the disease.

Source: Agencies