"All concerned parties have been preparing hard for the incident, yet we have to give [the latest warning] a low profile," caretaker Public Health Minister Pinij Charusombat said yesterday.

"We don't want to trigger a public panic over what is predicted. Take the Y2K flu bug as an example. When 2000 arrived, nothing serious happened because the world had been well prepared.

"In this case, too, there might not be any outbreak because we are prepared."

Prof Prasert Thongcharoen, the country's leading virologist and chairman of the Influenza Foundation (Thailand), said on Thursday that it was "just a matter of time" before the bird-flu virus developed into a flu pandemic.

Speaking at a conference on flu-pandemic preparedness in Pattaya, Prasert said the rapid spread of avian flu over the past four years into 45 countries, claiming 131 lives, made it likely that the bird-flu virus could turn into a flu pandemic.

 "What is happening is considered a rather clear warning sign, so we need to try our best to be as prepared as possible," he said.

As for the reported mass poultry deaths in Phichit, Pinij said the case had been dealt with by livestock authorities and he had ordered a special watch for possible signs of humans developing bird flu-like symptoms.

A mobile laboratory to test for suspected cases has been deployed to sites where a high number of bird deaths have been reported.