The WHO team arrived at the Arbil international airport at 10:30 am (0730 GMT) and was set to meet later Sunday with health minister Jamal Abdul Hameed of the Arbil administration of Kurdistan.

A massive cull of poultry has been underway in the northern Kurdistan region after an outbreak of the H5N1 avian influenza virus among birds.

The disease, which struck after hitting neighbouring Turkey last month, has claimed at least one human life in Iraq and a handful of other cases are under investigation there.

Iraq confirmed that a 15-year-old girl in Kurdistan had died from the H5N1 virus in January.

Initial reports from a WHO laboratory in Amman said that test results for the virus were negative, but Iraqi authorities later said that the girl was a bird flu victim.

Tests are still under way in Britain on virus samples from the girl's uncle, who also died of a pulmonary infection, and from a woman who hails from the same region and is currently in hospital.

Authorities in Iraqi Kurdistan have quarantined 14 people suspected of suffering from bird flu.

Turkey, which has had 21 cases of the flu, was previously the only country outside Asia to report fatalities from the virus. Four people have died there.

The first known cases of H5N1 in humans were recorded in Hong Kong in 1997, when six people died.

Since the virus resurfaced in Asia in 2003 there have been 160 confirmed cases, 86 of them fatal.

The WHO said last week it was also sending thousands of doses of the anti-influenza drug Tamiflu to help fight off the deadly disease.