According to German officials, 160,000 birds will be slaughtered on Sunday after the presence of H5N1 bird-flu virus was confirmed in a poultry farm in Bavaria, near southern city of Erlangen.

A ministry spokeswoman Sandra Brandt said on Friday that over 400 birds were found dead and the tests conducted at the Friedrich Loeffler Institute of Veterinary Medicine confirmed the bird flu virus was present

in five of the birds. The scientists said they discovered the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain of the virus, which can be lethal for people living in close contact with birds.

The German officials said that the infected animals came from another poultry farm in the northern state of Lower Saxony.

Last month, Germany raised its risk-preventive measures for bird flu after the lethal H5N1 virus has been detected in two birds among 100 found dead on an artificial lake between the states of Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt.

Also in June wild swans, geese and ducks were found with H5N1 in Leipzig in the eastern state of Saxony and in the southern city of Nuremberg in Bavaria.