ROSTOV-ON-DON, March 30 (RIA Novosti, Sergei Rudkovsky) - Almost 9.5 million birds have been vaccinated in southern Russia in the wake of several recent outbreaks of the deadly bird flu virus, emergency services said Thursday.

"Vaccination is continuing in 12 regions, and as many as 9,426,000 birds have been inoculated," a source in the Emergency Situations Ministry said.

The H5N1 strain virus has been identified in seven southern regions: the republics of Daghestan, Kalmykia, Adygea, Chechnya, and Kabardino-Balkaria, and the Stavropol and Krasnodar territories.

The potentially lethal strain of avian influenza returned to southern Russia in February, and the Krasnodar Territory was one of the worst affected regions. Officials have said over a million birds have been slaughtered in the area since last month's outbreak, but a massive vaccination campaign launched at local poultry farms in March has made it possible to prevent an epidemic.

No human cases of bird flu have been diagnosed in Russia.