German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed alarm about the rapid spread of the disease on the Baltic Sea island of Ruegen and Romania detected bird flu in poultry found dead in a village and a summer resort near the Black Sea port of Constanta.

Avian influenza has flared anew in recent weeks, spreading among birds in Europe and parts of Africa, and prompting authorities to impose bans on the poultry trade, introduce mass culling and vaccinate poultry flocks.

The World Health Organisation says the H5N1 virus has killed 91 people worldwide since late 2003. Two hundred million birds across Asia, parts of the Middle East, Europe and Africa have died of the virus or been culled.

The Indian government said it had found no case of human avian influenza after preliminary tests on a dead farmer earlier suspected to have been the country's first human victim of the disease.

The world's second-most populous country, known for its inadequate public health infrastructure, was testing people for avian flu after 50,000 birds died in Nandurbar district in western Maharashtra and tests on some fowl showed H5N1 bird flu.

"There are, however, no reports of any human cases of avian influenza," the ministry said in a statement.

An earlier report from a top administrator of India's Surat district in the western Gujarat state and the state's health minister had suggested the dead man had been a poultry farm worker, but the health ministry statement did not confirm this.

The earlier report also said the man had died of "suspected bird flu", but the federal health ministry said no human cases had been found.

In France, Europe's biggest poultry producer, the farm ministry confirmed that a duck found dead on Monday in the east of the country had H5N1.

France's H5N1 case was one of several wild ducks found dead near Lyon in a region famous for the quality of its chickens.

In Cairo, zoo manager Talaat Sidraus told Reuters that workers had begun disinfecting bird cages. Witnesses saw dead and sick birds inside the zoo grounds but it was not immediately clear if they had bird flu.

Elsewhere, authorities in northern Spain are testing a duck found dead in a lake to see if it carried H5N1, while Britain said bird flu was now more likely to reach its shores.

EUROPE ON ALERT

Germany and Austria have reported more cases of bird flu, while authorities in Bulgaria put a man in an isolation chamber and were testing him for H5N1 after two of his ducks died.

The disease has also spread to Egypt, which reported its first cases of H5N1 on Friday, while in Nigeria authorities are culling poultry and urging people not to eat sick birds after outbreaks there.

Indonesia confirmed on Saturday that a 19th person had died of bird flu, which has been reported in chickens and other domesticated fowl in most provinces of the sprawling country of 220 million people.

Experts have long feared the consequences of bird flu taking hold in Africa because of poor health and surveillance systems.

The UN AIDS chief said avian flu posed a major threat to Africa's fight against its AIDS epidemic, challenging overburdened health care systems and stretching economies.

Bird flu is also threatening livelihoods by slashing demand for poultry in Europe, Nigeria and parts of India.

"I have bought 200 chickens today but I know I will not be able to sell them," chicken trader Mohammad Taqi said at New Delhi's Ghazipur poultry market, where bird droppings and feathers litter the area and a nauseating stench fills the air.

But one customer was happy.

"I have heard about bird flu on TV but I am not bothered. I want to enjoy the low prices," said Nanku Ram, a labourer holding a huge bird.