S. Radakrishnan, a spokeswoman for India’s Health Ministry, said that 94 of 95 samples taken tested negative for bird flu. Results for the final sample were expected later Thursday.

Nine people have been hospitalized in the western Indian town of Navapur, where an outbreak among chickens has forced Indian authorities to cull hundreds of thousands of birds since Sunday.

Radakrishnan could not say if the samples were for 95 different people or multiple samples from the nine hospitalized.

The H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus has devastated poultry stocks and killed at least 92 people, mostly in Asia, since 2003, according to the World Health Organization. Most human cases of the disease have been linked to contact with infected birds. But scientists fear the virus could mutate into a form that is easily transmitted between humans, possibly sparking a pandemic.

In India, workers labored around the clock to cull poultry in and around Navapur after it was announced Saturday that tests of some of the 30,000 chickens that died there in recent weeks detected the virus.

“All chickens in the 10-kilometer (six-mile) radius of Navapur, in all the 49 poultry farms, have been killed. Not one chicken is left,” said Bhushan Gagrani, an official in the state of Maharashtra, where the outbreak is located.

More than 700,000 birds have been killed in Navapur, about 400 kilometers (250 miles) northeast of Bombay.

Health workers have now begun cleaning up farms in the sprawling poultry farming district, Gagrani said.

“Teams have begun clearing litter and excreta of chickens in the entire area,” Gagrani said.

A federal health official, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the matter, said the government was considering a ban on retail sales of a generic bird flu drug, fearing the disease could develop resistance if taken by people who are not infected by the H5N1 strain.

Two Indian pharmaceutical companies - Cipla Ltd. and Hetero Drugs Ltd. - are currently making generic copies of Tamiflu, a patented drug from Swiss drug maker Roche that is believed to be effective in treating symptoms of bird flu in humans.

Amid fears and mixed messages from the government, chicken sales dropped across the country. The army, some Indian airlines and Indian railways took chicken - an Indian staple - and eggs off their menus. Parliament also stopped serving chicken in its cafeteria, media reports said.

However, other government officials tried hard to reassure people that properly cooked chicken and eggs were safe. Top health officials ate chicken at a news conference in New Delhi.