SHANGHAI (REUTERS) - A recent outbreak of bird flu in China has cost poultry farmers 20 billion yuan (S$4.2 billion) and the government will implement new policies to support the industry, the Shanghai Securities News reported on Thursday.

The outbreak has affected more than 40 million farmers and triggered a fall in chicken and egg prices, the newspaper said.

It quoted Zhang Zhongqiu, a senior official of China's Ministry of Agriculture, as saying that new policies would be rolled out in due course.

Chinese authorities have confirmed a second human case of the new H10N8 strain of bird flu, contracted by a woman who is in a critical condition in a hospital in the east of the country, state news agency Xinhua reported this week.

The previous bird flu outbreak, which began last March, caused direct economic losses exceeding 60 billion yuan during the first half of 2013, the Shanghai Securities News said.