SHANGHAI, China — Authorities in China said today they have quarantined 116 people in northeastern Liaoning province after two new outbreaks of bird flu there. The province has now suffered three outbreaks in less than three weeks despite a massive campaign to contain the virus.

Kuwait reported the first two cases of bird flu in the Gulf region but said it would not do the tests to determine whether they were caused by the deadly and virulent H5N1 strain.

China did not make clear the extent to which the 116 people in Liaoning were being isolated. The country has imposed quarantines in other bird-flu afflicted areas but in at least one case residents were restricted only from leaving their village.

Authorities also disinfected homes, water wells, and streets within 2 miles of the latest outbreak sites on family chicken farms in Liaoning, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

The latest outbreaks of the H5N1 virus in the cities of Jinzhou and Fuxin in Liaoning began Sunday and killed 1,100 chickens on the family farms, the Agriculture Ministry said.

China has not yet confirmed any cases of human deaths from the H5N1 strain, which has killed at least 63 people elsewhere in Asia. But it has asked the World Health Organization to help it determine whether bird flu killed a 12-year-old girl who died in a town where there had been an outbreak.

Experts fear H5N1 could mutate into a form that is easily passed from human to human and spark a pandemic.

The latest outbreaks in China added to concerns that fake bird flu vaccines for poultry were threatening public health after officials reported an unapproved product was sold in Liaoning province, site of the three most recent outbreaks.

Health officials say human infections are inevitable if China cannot stop repeated outbreaks in poultry, and the government has ordered increasingly strict preventive measures.

In Kuwait, officials said tests in a local laboratory detected an H5 strain of bird flu but it had not been determined whether it was the deadly H5N1 strain or the less virulent H5N2 strain.

Dr. Mohammed al-Mihana of Kuwait's Public Authority for Agriculture and Fisheries said authorities would not do any further tests to discover which strain had cropped up there.

"We are satisfied with our tests, and we find no need for further investigations," al-Mihana said.