Malaysian police have been enlisted to help prevent birds and eggs from Indonesia from being brought into the country and coastal states have been put on high alert, a report said today.

The alarm has been raised by the deaths of seven family members from bird flu in north Sumatra, which faces onto Peninsular Malaysia. Health experts are investigating the cluster to try to establish the source of infection.

Indonesia has the world's second highest number of fatal human bird flu cases after Vietnam with 36 - and the highest number of deaths this year globally.

The Star newspaper said that Malaysia's veterinary services department has mobilised assistance from the police and customs department to prevent infected birds from reaching the country.

"We cannot allow the birds into the country. There could be serious implications and great danger that a similar outbreak could occur here," said the veterinary department's director-general Mustapa Jalil.

Put on high alert

All the states on Peninsular Malaysia's west coast, which lies nearest to Sumatra, as well as Sabah and Sarawak on Borneo island, have been put on high alert to watch out for infected birds, he said.

"Strict instructions have been issued that all birds from the country would be seized and destroyed immediately," he said, adding that anyone caught defying the order faced imprisonment.

Malaysia reported a series of bird flu outbreaks beginning in February when it appeared in free-range chickens in villages near the capital Kuala Lumpur, triggering the slaughter of thousands of chickens.

Since then, the country has suffered five other outbreaks of the virus among poultry in the northern states of Perak and Penang, although there have been no recent reports. There have been no human victims so far.