Myanmar’s military government would not try to hide a bird flu outbreak, the semi-official weekly Myanmar Times reported on Monday, quoting an official who insisted the country remained free of the deadly virus.

Aung Gyi, head of the Livestock Breeding and Veterinary Department’s Animal Health and Development Division, told the newspaper that foreign news agency reports of suspected H5N1 outbreaks in Myanmar were wrong.

“There would be no reason to hide any outbreak of bird flu,” Aung Gyi was quoted as saying, adding if an outbreak occurred, both the public and the appropriate international organisations would be immediately informed.

News reports about outbreaks in Myanmar, which the military has ruled since 1962, were “speculative” and occurred because the virus has been detected in Myanmar’s neighbours including Thailand, China and Laos, the report said.

Since late 2003, veterinarians had inspected almost 10,000 farms in the impoverished country and checked some 9.5 million birds and no bird flu cases had been found, the Myanmar Times reported.

The livestock department has joined with other ministries to monitor commercial farms and live poultry markets, and also domestic poultry reared near areas visited by migratory birds, the official said.

The department’s main laboratory in Yangon was assisted by various UN and Japanese bodies and so could quickly detect different strains of bird flu, the report said.

Myanmar’s neighbours send their samples to World Health Organisation (WHO) facilities in Hong Kong.

Experts from countries including China, Australia and Singapore had helped train Myanmar’s veterinarians about diagnosing and controlling the spread of bird flu and inspected poultry farms, the report said.