BEIRUT - Lebanon on Saturday said it was increasing its vigilance after a case of H5N1 strain of bird flu that is dangerous to humans was detected in neighbouring Israel.

In a statement published on Saturday, the ministry of agriculture called on farmers to remain vigilant and mobilised teams close to the country’s southern border.

"The agriculture ministry’s teams will continue to work on the ground to monitor any such cases that could come up and put an end to it in order to keep Lebanon free from this disease," it said. "After bird flu cases were detected... in the region of Haifa... the ministry of agriculture calls on farmers and hunters... particularly in the southern area close to the border with occupied Palestine, to remain vigilant to birds passing over their regions, and to keep their own birds locked up to prevent them from mixing with them," the statement said. So far there have been no such cases in Lebanon, it added.

On Thursday, the Israeli agriculture ministry announced that it had detected the H5N1 strain of bird flu near a kindergarten in the northern town of Binyamina on the Mediterranean coast.

It said 18 contaminated birds had been found dead in a pets’ corner near the kindergarten and that tests had confimed that the fowl died of the highly pathogenic H5N1 strain.

The Israeli ministry ordered the culling of all fowl in a three-kilometre (two-mile) radius of the contaminated area as a precaution.