Associated Press

Associated Press
Kuala Lumpur

Malaysia may resume poultry exports next week to Singapore,
its biggest market, despite failing to eradicate bird flu from
the northern state of Kelantan, a senior official said on
Saturday.

Live chickens, ducks and eggs would be shipped to Singapore
only from the neighboring Malaysian states of Malacca and Johor,
which have suffered no bird flu cases, said Hawari Hussein,
director-general of the Malaysian veterinary department.

Poultry export bans in effect since the deadly H5N1 strain of
bird flu was discovered in fighting cocks smuggled from Thailand
a month ago cost Malaysian farmers an estimated 1 million ringgit
(US$262,000) a day.

Malaysia and Singapore have been in talks to work out
guidlines for the limited resumption of exports to the island
city-state, Hawari said, and the final touches were expected next
week.

"Singapore has extended good cooperation," Hawari told
reporters. "We understand they give importance to human health."

Singaporean experts are conducting checks at some 130 poultry
farms to certify that they meet safety standards.

A quarantine was declared on the entire state of Kelantan
after the flu jumped a 10-kilometer restricted area on Tuesday
around the village where it first appeared.

Malaysia is sending a delegation to Thailand on Tuesday for
talks on cracking down on smuggling across the border.

No humans have been infected with H5N1 in Malaysia. The
disease has claimed at least 28 lives in Thailand and Vietnam,
and the World Health Organization says it is becoming entrenched
in parts of Asia.

A 19-year-old woman who was isolated in a northern Malaysian
hospital with bird flu-like symptoms was cleared Saturday of
having the disease, a senior Health Ministry official, Ramlee
Rahmat, told The Associated Press.