China has ordered vaccination of three million poultry after a bird flu outbreak in the western province of Qinghai, reports Xinhua.

An official with the Chinese Representative Office of the FAO said here Monday that the government had also sent reports on bird flu outbreak to the UN Food and Agricultural Organisation and the World Organisation for Animal Health.

The government had rushed three million doses of avian flu vaccine to inoculate the domestic birds in the Qinghai after migratory wild geese were found dead there.

Dang Chenyan, director of local animal epidemic prevention headquarters, said the province has roughly three million home-bred poultry.

Dang said that vaccine inoculation work had been finished in the bird flu affected area Saturday while inoculation in other areas of the province was going on.

The bird flu reference laboratory has confirmed that the deadly H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus had caused the latest death of the birds.

The virus has killed some 53 people in South East Asia since late 2003.

Qinghai has taken emergency measures by closing off spots to prevent people and fowl from coming in contact with wild birds. Quarantine and vaccination measures have also been adopted.