Egyptian cabinet spokesman Magdi Radi on Wednesday warned that the real danger of bird flu in the country lays in raising birds inside or near homes, although 60 percent of domestic poultry has been vaccinated.

Among the 43 human cases of bird flu including 19 deaths recorded since the outbreak of the disease in early 2006, 40 of them were a result of bringing up poultry in or near homes, the Egyptian MENA news agency quoted Radi as saying in a TV interview.

Radi said the concerned departments were intensifying efforts, especially in rural areas, to complete inoculation of the remaining 40 percent of poultry in the country.

The spokesman also called for speeding up an awareness campaign to explain to people the dangers of close contact with the birds raising in or near homes.

The Egyptian government has been exerting more efforts to prevent further spread of the bird flu virus since the fatal disease caused four human deaths in less than a week in late December, 2007.

Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazef on Tuesday adopted a number of measures to combat the deadly virus, reasserting the decision to ban the raising of domestic birds and draw up a future plan to develop ways of bringing up domestic birds in rural areas.

On Jan. 2, the Egyptian higher national committee for combating bird flu decided that all the birds and farm wastes proven infected with bird flu would be destroyed.

Egypt detected its first H5N1 virus in dead poultry in February 2006 and the first human case in March of the same year.