DHAKA - ALMOST 10,000 birds have been slaughtered in Bangladesh in the past two months, an official said on Wednesday, as the impoverished country faces a new outbreak of deadly avian flu.

Mozammel Haq, officer in charge of the government's response to the H5N1 strain, told AFP the birds had been killed since the virus re-emerged in Bangladesh in November.

Bangladesh was hit by bird flu in February 2007 and the virus made a comeback in January. Earlier this year, 50 of the country's 64 districts were affected and more than a million birds were slaughtered.

Industry officials said that outbreak led to the closure of 40 percent of the nation's poultry farms and left half a million workers jobless.

Bangladesh's poultry industry is one of the world's largest, producing 220 million chickens and 37 million ducks annually.

The country reported its first confirmed human case of bird flu in May but the government said the 16-month-old baby who contracted the virus had recovered. -- AFP