But no one is reported to have been infected among breeders on the farms, the DPRK's official KCNA news agency said.

"Bird flu has recently broken out at a few chicken farms including the Hadang chicken farm," it said, quoting members of the communist state's emergency veterinary committee as saying.

"Hundreds of thousands of infected chickens have been burned before their burial at the relevant chicken farms."

The committee has been working to prevent the spread of the disease to other poultry farms, and officials of the agricultural and public health ministries have been mobilizing a campaign to prevent its spread, it added.

But it remained unclear if the strain of virus involved was H5N1, which has been known to jump from birds to humans.

That virus has killed 34 Vietnamese, 12 Thais and one Cambodian since it swept across large parts of Asia in late 2003.

South Korea confirmed 19 cases of the H5N1 strain at poultry farms between December 2003 and March 2004, resulting in a mass cull of poultry.

No infection in humans have been reported in South Korea, but the outbreak halted the country's modest poultry exports to Japan, Hong Kong and China.

(Source: Reuters)