Two of the countries hardest hit by bird flu announced extreme measures to fight the disease on Nov.15, with China promising to vaccinate its entire poultry stock of 14 billion birds and Vietnam launching a campaign to purge its two largest cities of poultry.

    Jia Youling, chief veterinary officer in China's Agriculture Ministry, said China is in the process of vaccinating all poultry in the country. He said the government will pay all fees involved, but he did not provide any details of how officials would carry out the vaccinations.

    It was unclear if the birds were being vaccinated against the virulent H5N1 bird flu strain that has ravaged poultry stocks across Asia and killed at least 64 people since 2003.

    China has more than 14 billion farm poultry, accounting for nearly 21 percent of the world's total. Millions of birds have already been vaccinated in the country because of previous outbreaks.

    The announcement came as China confirmed two new outbreaks of the bird flu. More than 6,500 chickens were found infected in Urumqi and Zepu counties in the northwest Xinjiang region on Nov. 9, and more than 2,700 died, said Roy Wadia, a World Health Organization spokesman in Beijing, citing the Agriculture Ministry.

    While China has not reported a human case of the disease, experts warn that it is inevitable if the government cannot stop repeated outbreaks in poultry. Eleven poultry outbreaks have been reported in the country in the past month.

    China "still faces some problems in bird flu prevention and control system, especially at the grassroots level," Jia said, according to the Xinhua News Agency. "China has a lot of backyard-bred poultry. Some farmers pay no attention to the disease."

    Scientists in Beijing are trying to determine whether a girl who died in Central China's Hunan Province after developing high fever is the country's first human case of bird flu.

    The results of the investigation, which is almost complete, will be made public this week, said an expert who did not want to be identified.

    The 12-year-old girl is one of the three suspected human cases in Hunan. She died on October 17 but two others, her brother and a 37-year-old teacher, have recovered after having similar symptoms.

    China is yet to report a confirmed human case but if it does, "it's not something that's earth-shattering in the grand scheme of things because there are human cases elsewhere," Roy Wadia, the World Health Organization (WHO) spokesman in Beijing, was quoted by Xinhua as saying.

    "It would not be a surprising development. It just means surveillance systems are better now," he said.

    On Monday, a six-member WHO team joined Chinese experts in Hunan and Beijing for field investigation and laboratory tests.

    Vice-Health Minister Wang Longde arrived in Liaoning Province, where a woman who had close contact with dead chickens has developed pneumonia. The woman is in hospital and experts have not been able to determine what caused her illness.

    Wang is in the Northeast China province for strengthening supervision and control measures against possible poultry-to-human transmission of the virus.

    Meanwhile, in Vietnam, government officials in Ho Chi Minh City and the capital Hanoi have warned farmers to kill or sell all poultry by Monday. They will be compensated at half the current market value if they act now, but birds found alive after the deadline will be destroyed with no compensation, officials said.

    "We hope that clearing out live poultry in the city will help minimize the chances of people getting sick from bird flu," said Huynh Hu Loi, director of Ho Chi Minh City's animal health department. "A pandemic can happen anytime. We are doing all we can."

    The campaign is one of the most extreme measures taken in the country to try to slow the H5N1 virus. Vietnam has experienced a surge in poultry outbreaks over the past few weeks. The latest human death was reported last week.

    On Tuesday, China said it would also ship 45 tons of bird flu vaccine to Vietnam.

    International health experts have warned that the bird flu virus could mutate into a form easily spread among humans, igniting a global pandemic. So far, most human cases have been traced to contact with infected birds.

    The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization has encouraged countries to vaccinate birds while practicing other control methods, such as mass slaughtering and the controlled movement of poultry in and around infected areas.

    In Indonesia, European Union Health Commissioner Markos Kyprianou urged the international community on Tuesday to help the cash-strapped country vaccinate poultry and kill infected birds to fight the disease.

    On Monday, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said Indonesia doesn't have the funds to compensate farmers for destroying their flocks.