More than 370,000 chickens have been culled in China’s eastern Jiangsu province after finding the H5N1 strain of the avian-flu virus in chickens in the area, the Ministry of Agriculture said. According to a statement on the ministry website, the H5N1 strain of the avian-flu virus was found in poultry being raised in Dongtai city and Hai’an County, both in Jiangsu. The areas where the poultry were raised have been disinfected and transport of all poultry from the two areas has been halted.

Officials suspect that migrating birds may be the source of the disease. Wild birds play a role in transmitting H5N1 into commercial poultry populations, but experts say that the spread of the virus is largely related to the trade of birds and their products.

The virus has killed at least 246 people across the world, with Indonesia accounting for one-third of those deaths, according to World Health Organization. A state laboratory is further testing the samples to see if the virus has mutated, the ministry said. Preliminary tests found the virus is a different strain from that which was recently found in southern China.

Experts fear that the virus could mutate into a different form that is easily transmissible from human to human.

Last week, the Hong Kong government ordered the slaughter of more than 80,000 birds after three chickens found dead on a farm tested positive for the virus. Twenty countries had outbreaks of the disease during the first nine months of 2008, down from twenty-five during the same period in 2007, according to U.N. data.