(Recasts, adds details)

By Kwaku Sakyi-Addo

ACCRA, May 2 (Reuters) - Ghana has suffered its first outbreak of the highly pathogenic H5N1 bird flu at a chicken farm east of the capital Accra, the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday.

A handful of nearby countries in West Africa have already had outbreaks of the disease among poultry, and the worst-hit, Nigeria, reported sub-Saharan Africa's only confirmed human death from H5N1 early this year.

The Ghana outbreak was detected on a farm 20 km (13 miles) east of Ghana's capital Accra, near the port of Tema, Dr Harry Opata, WHO disease prevention and control officer, told Reuters.

"It's confirmed," Opata said. "Initial confirmation was done by the veterinary lab here in Accra ... and supported by a U.S. naval services laboratory in Cairo, Egypt."

"We'll assume the whole farm was infected ... about 100 chickens a day were dying in the past 3-4 days," he said.

Opata said all 1,600 birds on the farm -- mostly chickens and a few ducks -- had already been incinerated to control the disease.

The farm was relatively isolated, and the surrounding area had been put under veterinary surveillance to prevent any spread, he said.

At least 200 million birds have died or been culled because of the H5N1 strain as it has spread from Asia around much of the world in recent years.

The first case in Africa was detected in poultry in early 2006 in Nigeria, and outbreaks were subsequently confirmed in Ghana's neighbours Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso as well as nearby Niger and Cameroon.

The global human death toll stands at 172.

Experts are worried that weak human and animal health services in sub-Saharan Africa may allow the virus to go unnoticed -- giving it more chance to mutate into a form that could pass between people and trigger a human pandemic.

But so far the human death in Nigeria is the only one recorded from the disease in sub-Saharan Africa.

On the eastern edge of the African continent, one non-fatal human case had been confirmed in Djibouti, while further north on the continent Egypt is the worst-hit country, with 14 people confirmed killed by the virus.

Foreign donors gathered in the West African country of Mali in December and pledged nearly $500 million in new funds, mainly to help Africa fight the spread of bird flu and avert the threat of a human pandemic.

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