ASTANA, August 1 (RIA Novosti) - More than 600 chickens died at a farm in the Pavlodar region of Kazakhstan in ten days from the bird flu, the Kazakh Emergencies Situations Ministry said.

Experts are studying the virus and comparing it with the one that caused the epidemic in Southeast Asia and claimed dozens of lives, the ministry said.

Earlier reports suggested that a 20-year-old worker from the local Nan poultry farm was taken to hospital with a suspected infection.

"The patient is now in intensive care at the infection hospital. He is in a stable, [but] grave condition," the local disaster medicine department said.