British poultry keepers will be asked to register their flocks on a central database in order to improve surveillance of bird flu, the Environment Secretary said tonight.

The new register is intended to manage any future outbreak of bird flu. Poultry businesses will be invited to register within the next month.

Margaret Beckett, Secretary of State for Environment Food and Rural Affairs, said: "The European directive on avian influenza will require us to introduce a poultry register by 2007 but we must move much faster than that.

"This database would be another safeguard to help identify an outbreak but, more importantly, limit its spread. It would allow us to know where poultry farms are and target effort and resources effectively."

The European Commission today banned imports of pet birds and feathers from Russia in response to the latest confirmed outbreak of the potentially-lethal H5N1 strain of bird flu, which has been linked to 60 human deaths in South-East Asia.

A Commission spokeswoman said that the Russian ban was prompted by confirmed avian flu cases in hundreds of domestic birds in the county of Tula, near Moscow.

The EU has already banned poultry imports from Turkey, Romania and the Greek island of Chios, near Turkey - although test results have proved negative for the deadly strain so far after an outbreak of avian flu on the island.

"We are requesting further tests on the birds found infected on Chios, and precautionary measures will remain in place until and unless we are completely reassured," said the spokeswoman.

National Farmers’ Union president Tim Bennett held talks with Tony Blair today about contingency plans to eradicate any cases of bird flu in Britain. He said that 50,000 British poultry workers would be at risk following any UK outbreak of H5N1.

Mr Bennett said: "Those few people in the Far East who have developed avian influenza have been in close contact with infected birds, so it is of paramount importance that we protect the 50,000 people working in our industry."

Precautions could include issuing protective clothing, priority the Tamiflu antiviral drug and advice on minimising contacts with potentially diseased birds. A three km exclusion zone would be set up around any confirmed bird flu cases and any poultry within that region would be culled.

Defra will issue a one-page guide on avian flu to advise poultry keepers how to reduce the risk of disease, aimed particularly at non-commercial and hobby poultry keepers.

Times Recommends

• Please help: maimed children of war want their lives back
• Cabal seizes diamond riches to buy power
• White House gatecrashers got to the president