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more quarantines in Romania>>>

Bird flu continued to spread through Romania with the discovery of 11 new outbreaks including one in the south of the capital Bucharest.

"Overnight Wednesday 200 people in the fourth district of Bucharest were placed under quarantine, taking the number of isolated inhabitants in the Romanian capital to 400," Marius Dobrescu, a spokesman for the mayor's office, told AFP.



"After the discovery of dead birds in several farmyards in the district, some 250 heads of poultry were destroyed."

However, Romania's health ministry on Thursday announced a nationwide "lifting of the human quarantine".

"The slaughtering of poultry will continue, the contaminated areas will still be disinfected, but the population will be able to travel freely because there have still be no human cases in Romania," Rodica Costinea, director of public health, told the media.

But the message did not appear to be getting through to local authorities.

Dobrescu said quarantine would not be ended unless written instructions were received.

And Nicolae Alexandri, the head of the disease prevention committee in Prahova in the centre of Romania, where 10 outbreaks were reported Thursday, said all 10 areas would be placed under quarantine.

In all 56 bird flu outbreaks have been discovered in Romania since the virus reemerged there 12 days ago.