The Czech Republic's top veterinary authority said on Thursday it had found the highly contagious H5N8 strain of bird flu in two dead swans in the south of the country.

The strain is lethal for birds but it has never been reported to have spread to humans.

It is the first case among wild birds in the Czech Republic since 2017, though the strain was detected at a small poultry farm last year, forcing the slaughter of 137,000 birds.

"We recommend small poultry breeders in the area to keep their birds in closed premises and protect them from a contact with wild birds," State Veterinary Administration (SVS) director Zbynek Semerad said in a statement on Thursday.

The disease is currently raging in several European countries, including France where hundreds of thousands of birds have been culled to stop the infection.

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