diff --git a/configure.ac b/configure.ac
index 593a664..5fcca0d 100644
--- a/configure.ac
+++ b/configure.ac
@@ -412,8 +412,11 @@ fi],
 
 if test "$enable_bz2" != no; then
   bz2_devel=ok
-  AC_CHECK_HEADER([bzlib.h], [], [bz2_devel=missing], [;])
-  AC_CHECK_LIB([bz2], [BZ2_bzBuffToBuffCompress], [], [bz2_devel=missing])
+  PKG_CHECK_MODULES([BZ2_PKG], [bzip2], [
+      AC_DEFINE([HAVE_LIBBZ2], 1, [Define if libbzip2 is available.])
+      LIBS="$LIBS $BZ2_PKG_LIBS"
+      CFLAGS="$CFLAGS $BZ2_PKG_CFLAGS"
+    ], [bz2_devel=missing])
   if test $bz2_devel != ok; then
     MSG_ERROR([libbzip2 development files not found
 
@@ -430,12 +433,7 @@ produced elsewhere unreadable) or resolve this error to build HTSlib.])
   fi
 dnl Unfortunately the 'bzip2' package-cfg module is not standard.
 dnl Redhat/Fedora has it; Debian/Ubuntu does not.
-  if test -n "$PKG_CONFIG" && "$PKG_CONFIG" --exists bzip2; then
      pc_requires="$pc_requires bzip2"
-  else
-     private_LIBS="$private_LIBS -lbz2"
-  fi
-  static_LIBS="$static_LIBS -lbz2"
 fi
 
 if test "$enable_lzma" != no; then