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.