MOSCOW, March 1 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's agriculture minister said Wednesday that the country would launch mass vaccination of poultry against bird flu March 10.

Speaking on Ekho Moskvy radio, Alexei Gordeyev said: "On March 10, we will start to vaccinate private poultry against bird flu according to a set timetable."

Gordeyev said the campaign was designed to prevent the disease from spreading to poultry farms and more importantly to deter human cases. The minister added that no human cases had been reported in Russia so far.

The Emergency Situations Ministry said earlier Wednesday that Russia was being swept by the third wave of the disease since July 2005. The outbreak was registered February 3.

"About 500,000 birds have died from a virus which lab tests identified as bird flu since the pandemic broke out, and more than 215,000 birds have been culled," the ministry said.

Over 1.3 million birds have died or been slaughtered in three outbreaks of bird flu since July 2005, the ministry said.

The latest outbreak has hit six regions in southern Russia: the republics of Kabardino-Balkaria, Daghestan, Chechnya and Kalmykia, and the Krasnodar and Stavropol territories, affecting both domestic and wildfowl.

Experts fear the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu might mutate and become more contagious for humans, emerging as a national security threat in 2006. The Emergency Situations Ministry warned in January that between 18% and 20% of the population could be infected with bird flu if a pandemic were to hit the country.