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About 40,000 poultry have been culled in Chile after the country detected its first case of bird flu in an industrial setting, Reuters reported.

Carlos Orellana, head of the livestock protection department at Chile's agriculture and livestock agency SAG, said it was a "limited event" and authorities had not found any more cases in the area.

"This is a very limited event, our monitoring in the peripheral region continues to give us negative results," Orellana commented during a press conference in Santiago, adding that the dead birds represented a small fraction of the 30 million poultry in the country.

"We hope to get this situation under control and for Chile to regain its status as a country without highly pathogenic avian influenza," he said.

The outbreak was discovered on Monday at a plant belonging to meat producer Agrosuper in Rancagua in central Chile, prompting the government to suspend chicken exports for a period of 28 days.

Bird flu is spreading to more and more countries

Cases of bird flu, mostly in wild animals, have been detected in Chile since late last year.

Argentina confirmed its first case in industrial poultry last month, prompting it to suspend exports of poultry products.

Brazil, the world's largest chicken exporter, still remains bird flu-free but has investigated several suspected cases.

South American health authorities established a regional technical committee earlier this month to deal with bird flu outbreaks.

Ximena Aguilera, Chile's health minister, said that although there have been cases of marine mammal infections in the country, there has been no human-to-human transmission, but the ministry is closely monitoring workers and people who have been exposed to bird flu.

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