(Adds quotes from PM, industry, paragraphs 3, 4; 10-13 By Naveen Thukral and Niluksi Koswanage KUALA LUMPUR, June 6 (Reuters) - Malaysia has detected the H5N1 bird flu virus in chickens in a village near the capital and has begun culling poultry nearby as a protective move, authorities said on Wednesday. Malaysia has reported no human cases of the infection, but Wednesday's incident was the first time avian influenza had been found in the southeast Asian nation since March 21 last year when several chickens tested positive for the virus. Officials moved swiftly to stamp out the disease. "We need to take whatever measures (are necessary) to prevent its spread," Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi told reporters in the capital, Kuala Lumpur. "It is important that we take immediate measures." Health officials said they were setting up roadblocks and killing chickens in the region in the central state of Selangor where the virus was found. "When we sent our boys, we found bird flu in two village chickens but people said 60 chickens had died earlier," said Kamaruddin Mohamed Isa, the head of disease control for the veterinary services department. "We will cull all chickens and impose a 10 km (6-mile) quarantine area and the police will put a road block around this area," he told Reuters. The World Health Organisation says H5N1 has infected more than 300 people in 12 countries, 188 of whom have died since the disease re-emerged in Asia in late 2003. Most human cases have involved people who have had contact with infected fowl. Experts fear if the virus mutates into a form that allows easy human-to-human transmission, it could trigger a pandemic that could kill millions around the world. Neighbouring Singapore said it was suspending all poultry and egg imports from Selangor after the virus was found in chickens in the area. Malaysia exports between 100,000 and 200,000 chickens each day to Singapore. Malaysian commercial farms have not been hit by the latest outbreak, an official of a group of livestock farmers told Reuters, adding that he hoped any possible impact would be minimal. "There might be a slight depression in poultry demand in the coming days, but I hope everything will remain all right and people will start consuming again," said Abdul Rahman of the Federation of Livestock Farmers' Associations of Malaysia. (Additional reporting by Liau Y-Sing and Hsu Chuang Khoo)
