JAKARTA: Indonesia confirmed yesterday a fourth person in the country had died of bird flu, while China said hundreds of farm geese had died, the latest outbreak of a disease that seems to defy efforts to halt its spread.

The deadly H5N1 virus first surfaced in Asia but appears to be spreading quickly to the west on the wings of migrating birds. There are fears that Africa, where many countries have poor health systems, could also soon report cases in birds.

The European Union halted imports of live birds and some poultry from Croatia, where authorities started to slaughter 10,000 birds yesterday, a day after Russia confirmed more bird flu in poultry and Slovenia tested a dead swan for the virus.

France ordered poultry farmed in more than one fifth of the country to be kept inside over concerns that migratory birds could spread bird flu to the country.

Indonesia's health ministry said

yesterday that tests had confirmed that a man who died last month was positive for bird flu. Seven people in total have been infected with H5N1.

In China, hundreds of farm geese died in the eastern province of Anhui, Noureddin Mona, of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, said.

He said the agriculture ministry had told him on Monday that 2,100 birds had been infected, 550 had died and 45,000 culled.

A foreign ministry spokesman said the outbreak had been brought under control. ­Reuters