Bird flu spreads in Nigeria
2006-02-10 09:51
Kaduna - The lethal H5N1 bird flu strain spread to three more poultry farms in Nigeria on Thursday, a day after the first avian cases in Africa were reported, sparking fears of a possible pan-continent epidemic.
Samuel Jutzi, director of the health and animal products division at the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation, said the outbreak "confirms the fears... about the threat to other African countries".
Describing the situation as "a serious international crisis", Jutzi warned of the need to "act immediately to prevent the spread of the virus".
Simultaneous reports of both human and avian outbreaks in Romania, Kurdish Iraq, Bulgaria, China and Greece, a month after the lethal strain killed four in Turkey, provided further evidence that the virus had clearly moved beyond China and Southeast Asia, where it had claimed more than 80 lives since 2003.
Infected poultry
To date, the human variant of the disease had been contracted by people who had had regular and intensive contact with infected poultry.
Africa was considered particularly vulnerable because its health services were underfunded and many people's immune systems had been weakened by malnutrition and HIV/Aids.
Nigerian agriculture ministry spokesperson Tope Ajakaiye said on Thursday that tests on chicken carcasses had identified the H5N1 strain at northern Nigerian sites, more than 200km apart.
He said: "Four farms have been cordoned off and quarantined - one in Kaduna, two near Kano and one in Plateau State."
Incinerated poultry
Officials equipped with rifles and protective clothing shot 168 ostriches on Thursday on the Sambawa farm, where H5N1 was first identified a day earlier, while a bulldozer dug a pit to bury incinerated poultry.
Mohammed Dantani, a federal agriculture official leading the team, said: "There were 46 000 chicken on this farm, but as of now they are all dead."
A Kaduna state agriculture official said two children at the Sambawa farm had fallen ill and were being tested to see if they had the bird flu.
Sa'idu Baba Chori said: "We have received a complaint... from a farmer that the doves, geese and chickens he is raising are dying rapidly and his two kids are sick. They are coughing blood."
SA veterinary institute
Nigerian authorities promised a large-scale operation to quarantine farms and destroyed sick birds, while FAO experts arrived in the west African country on Thursday and the WHO said it was in talks about sending a team.
A South African veterinary institute said it would conduct tests on bird samples from Kenya, Malawi and Sudan.
Ghana and Cameroon became the latest African countries late on Thursday to ban poultry imports from Nigeria, following Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and South Africa.
The United States issued warnings to its nationals in Benin, Burkina Faso and Togo against visiting poultry farms and asked them to be on the outlook for "credible reports of large-scale bird deaths".